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-Christian Cults 



SPIRITUALISM 
THEOSOPHY 
CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 



BARRINGTON 



Bnti-Cbdstian Cults. 

AN ATTEMPT TO SHOW THAT 

Spiritualism, SPjerigoplnj anb OTtjrtsttan Same 

ARE DEVOID OF SUPERNATURAL POWERS AND 
ARE CONTRARY TO THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. 



— BY — 

A. H. BARRINGTON, A.B., B.D., 

Rector of Christ Church, 
janesville, wis. 



WITH A COMMENDATORY BY 

THE BISHOP OF MILWAUKEE. 



Milwaukee, Wis.: 
THE YOUNG CHURCHMAN CO. 

London: 
SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON & CO. 



A* 









a 



copyright by 
The Young Churchman Co., 




3*MS*^ 



1st COPY, 



Gommen&ators* 



To the Reader: 

'"THE request to commend this book, coming from a 

valued Presbyter in this Diocese, and also a dear 
personal friend, is one to which I very cordially give 
heed. If only to testify publicly to my warm confidence 
in him, as a devoted servant of God, in the Ministry of 
His Church, the request could well be granted. 

But beyond this range of personal feeling, one is 
always glad to commend every honest effort made to 
stem somewhat, if it may be, this wholesale delusion of 
the reading public, going on to such a wide extent 
to-day, by the many clever tricksters, the enchanters, 
the smooth and easy talkers, the magicians of every 
degree — great and small — male and female — who come 
before the public daily with their wares for sale: the 
new philosophies, their recently patented systems of 
religion, their fresh panaceas for all our many human 



ANTI-CHRISTIAN CULTS. 



ills ; and who do thus, in a strange measure, bewitch the 
public eye; and withal do most egregiously fool the 
people, lead many weak and unstable Christian folk 
away from the old faith, aside from the rough and nar- 
row path. 

"Cults," these are well called; make-shifts, patent 
medicine processes; and all thoroughly "Anti- Christian 
Cults," most veritably and far too effectually, they 
always prove to be. New they also are, in one sense; 
and yet not new, in a more true and exact sense. Old 
and very old, full of decay and moral rottenness ; full of 
foul odors and intellectual poison, and the germs of a 
fatal spiritual disease hid beneath — as all history well 
shows. Old ghosts of old-time heresies, they are — each 
one. Ghosts that will not lie down in their graves ; sure 
to rise again each passing century, or even decade; 
assume some new and more fanciful dress, perhaps a 
shade more picturesque and fashionable than before; and 
so they live again, parading the old lie under changed 
terms and in smart language ; beguiling many weary 
and sin-laden souls, fooling the people, attracting the 
unwary, shaking the unstable; as the latest fashions, the 
last mental "cult," the newest and freshest "religion" 
always has done, always will do : something that has 
come to "reform," to supersede and dethrone the old. 

Nor are we at all hopeful or expectant that these 
innumerable "ghosts" will ever permanently die. Stop 
them all to-day, and they will all rise up again on the 



COMMEND A TOR Y. 



morrow, at least in some other place, and in some other 
way. " There is nothing new under the sun," not even 
in these subtle lines of moral and intellectual heresies. 
And so the long spiritual combat of truth against error, 
of the Church against the devil, of Christ against Belial, 
of God against the worldly mammon of unrighteousness, 
shall ever go on — until "this tyranny be overpast"; 
and until that bright day of "the new Heavens and the 
new earth " shall come; w r hen this slow 7 probation of our 
earthly schooling is done, under the patient discipline 
of Almighty God; and until His "Fulness of Time" 
shall be accomplished. We w r ell know Who and What 
shall win, in that Great Last Day; but we "know not 
the times or the seasons, w 7 hich the Father hath placed 
in His own Power." For this culmination we can only 
patiently wait, and lovingly " w 7 ork our work betimes," 
until that Day shall dawn, and our many earthly 
shadows shall "flee away." 

Yet, let us welcome each and every earnest effort made 
by every preacher of the old-time Gospel, every lover of the 
changeless Creed of the passing ages, as he does his share 
in upholding the Eternal Truth of God, and the Revela- 
tion of Jesus Christ; each one standing in his own lot, 
where his Master may have placed him, narrow though 
that lot is, modest and humble though his effort may 
seem to be. Hence, our humble prayer and our affection- 
ate hope is, that the blessing of God may rest upon this 
book, now issuing from the press, sent out by our dear 



ANTI-CHRISTIAN CULTS. 



brother for the helpful reading and the reasonable com- 
fort of his many friends in the Church; and we trust also, 
for the help of some others who are beyond and without. 
We well know he sends it out, not for the purpose of 
controversy, but from a heart and mind full of devotion 
to the Adorable Person of Jesus Christ our Blessed Lord, 
"Who of God is made unto us, our Wisdom, our Right- 
eousness, our Sanctification,and our Final Redemption." 
Isaac Lea Nicholson, 
Milwaukee, Bishop of Milwaukee. 

Whitsun: 1898. 



Butbor's preface* 



HTHESE lectures were written for, and delivered before, 
the parishioners of Christ Church. They are pub- 
lished in the hope that they may enlighten others who 
are being led astray by Spiritualism, Theosophy, and 
Christian Science. Sooner or later they must find, to 
their sorrow, that though there be elements of truth in 
each of these cults, yet in scope and purpose they are 
false, subversive of the Christian Faith, and totally 
unable to afford true comfort and consolation. 

Among the many books used in preparation of these 
lectures, we would specially mention Earth's Earliest 
Ages, by G. H. Pember, M.A., and Hypnotism, by Dr. 
Albert Moll. 

Christ Church Rectory, 

Janesville, Wis., 

Eastertide, 1898. 



Uable ot Contents* 



PAGE 

The Case Stated. . 11 

Spiritualism 26 

Spiritualism. II 40 

Theosophy. I 66 

Theosophy. II 79 

Christian Science. I. . . 108 

Christian Science. II. 133 

Conclusion 158 



Anti-Christian Cults. 



Ube Case Stated 

\\ 7 ELL spake Rabbi Gamaliel of old when 
he cautioned the Sanhedrin to "take 
heed" as to what they intended to do con- 
cerning the new faith, which was increasing 
w^ith such alarming rapidity. "Take heed 
.... lest haply ye be found even to fight 
against God." He referred to incidents in the 
history of the chosen people and then declared : 
"If this counsel or this work be of men, it 
will come to nought ; but if it be of God ye 
cannot overthrow it." 1 

1 Acts v. 34-39. 



12 ANTI-CHRISTIAN CULTS. 

CHRISTIANITY IMPREGNABLE, CHRISTIANS 
UNSTABLE. 

That Christianity is of Divine origin and 
part of the eternal plan and purpose of the 
Almighty, we have not the shadow of a 
doubt. That it can be overthrown, is impos- 
sible. We are not, therefore, alarmed about 
its ultimate success. Nothing could be further 
from our thoughts. Men do, however, u fight 
against God" They are timid, and too easily 
turned from the straight and narrow path. 
They are readily deceived and to their own 
hurt. They, like the Athenians of old, are 
attracted and won over by anything new 
and strange, till, actually hoping for more 
light, they are plunged further into darkness. 
Too many (if there were but two or three, it 
were too many) — too many are being deceived, 
and blinded, and led astray to-day, by the 
false hopes, and promises, and claims of cer- 
tain religious yet anti-Christian cults which 
in vain would undermine the truth as it is in 
Jesus. Undoubtedly, like other fads which 
spring up in the night of darkness rather 



THE CASE STATED. 



than in the light of eternal truth, these shad- 
ows of good shall come to nought, as they 
are unquestionably of men ; but, in the mean- 
time, the effect upon the adherents of such 
substitute religions cannot but be disastrous. 
History repeats itself and there is no reason 
to note an exception here. Light and life 
are found only in the service of Almighty 
God. To deny Him or to assume to worship 
Him, while rejecting the light that He has 
given us, is to plunge into darkness and to 
invite disaster. Therefore we plead earnestly, 
lovingly, and in all sincerity, with those who 
have willingly listened to these false and de- 
ceptive ways, to turn from these vanities to 
serve the living God. 

ISRAEL'S PLIGHT. 

Gamaliel's counsel was ignored, that the 
chosen people might "even fight against 
God." Behold the result ! They were looking 
anxiously forward to the coming of their 
Messiah, rightly basing all their fondest 
hopes upon Him, yet when He came they 



14 ANTI-CHRISTIAN CULTS. 

would not accept Him, they could not abide 
His counsels, but their rejected Messiah is 
to-day the Christ of history. 

It is written: "Cursed is everyone that 
hangeth on a tree," and the Jews in their 
desire to heap ignominy upon the hope of all 
the earth, though His own people, hanged 
Him to a tree; but behold, the Cross was 
transformed into the throne of the Lord of 
lords and King of kings, and Jesus was 
lifted up thereon, "that whosoever believeth 
in Him should not perish but have everlast- 
ing life." 

The Jews consigned their Messiah to the 
tomb, and from that very moment the glory 
of Israel faded, while the curse which they 
would invoke upon their Redeemer has fast- 
ened itself upon that people even until now. 

Israel sealed her doom at Calvary, yet out 
of the sepulchre arose " The Light to lighten 
the Gentiles;" and how the nations, that 
have seen that great light, have been illumi- 
nated; how they have advanced; how they 
^ave prospered; how completely have they 



THE CASE STATED. 15 

distanced the nations who are in darkness; 
how they are still advancing (and that not so 
much intellectually as morally); all this is due 
to the preaching of the Gospel, to Christian- 
ity ; and yet there are those who would give 
it up for some passing fancy, that can only 
lead them back into darkness, uncertainty, 
despair. How many of us realize how very 
much of the present civilization and enjoy- 
ment of life, is directly and solely due to the 
religion of Jesus Christ ? 

THE POWER OF CHRIST. 

As Dean Alford has said: "That which 
is most deeply w r orking in modern life and 
thought is the mind of Christ. His name has 
passed over our institutions and much more 
has His Spirit penetrated into our social and 
domestic existence." 

John von Miiller, the famous Swiss histo- 
rian, declares: "Christ is the key to the 
history of the world. Not only does all har- 
monize with the mission of Christ; all is 
subordinated to it." 2 

2 Lorimer's Argument for Christianity, 61, 62. 



16 ANTI-CHRISTIAN CULTS. 

And the great German philosopher, Fichte, 
says : " We and our whole age are so rooted 
in the soil of Christianity and have sprung 
from it; it has exercised its influence in the 
most manifold ways on the whole of our 
culture, and we should be absolutely nothing 
of all that we are, if this mighty principle had 
not preceded us." 

Dr. Lorimer in his admirable work, The 
Argument for Christianity, says : "In France, 
there is a magnificent cartoon, by Paul Chen- 
avard, representing what may be termed the 
palingenesis of human society. The great 
picture is divided into two horizontal zones. 
In the upper one we have a flaring, noisy, 
triumphant procession of the imperial Caesar. 
There are lictors, generals, banners, spoils, 
prisoners, elephants, eagles, and indeed every- 
thing to suggest insolent and unchallenged 
power. But the lower zone is pervaded by 
the feeling of silence, obscurity, patience, and 
suffering. It discloses the primitive Christians 
at prayer in the catacombs, which they have 
dug to serve them both as chapel and grave, 



THE CASE STATED. 17 

beneath the throne of the emperor. The con- 
trast is complete, and like all master-pieces of 
art, tells its own story. It teaches that the 
pagan civilization of Rome, when at the height 
of its strength and splendor, and when entirely 
oblivious to danger, was being steadily, 
though slowly, undermined ; and was inevi- 
tably doomed to give place to a new order, 
born of a new and despised creed. It is well 
known that the patricians, the philosophers 
and even the plebs of the eternal city, held in 
contempt a religion that had a cross for its 
altar and an alleged malefactor for its hero. 
But notwithstanding this supercilious self- 
confidence, Christianity, weak, unattractive, 
and unostentatious, was destined to triumph 
and to give to history a new channel and a 
new course of development." 3 

How completely has it triumphed ! How 
it has revolutionized the laws, the customs, 
the ideas, the very feelings of men until it has 
marvellously improved their condition. Well 

3 P. 60, 61. 



18 ANTI-CHRISTIAN CULTS. 

may Lowell say : " There cannot be found a 
place on this planet ten miles square, where a 
decent man can live in decency, comfort and 
security, supporting and educating his child- 
ren, unspoiled and unpolluted ; a place where 
age is revered, infancy protected, manhood 
respected, womanhood honored,, and life held 
in due regard — where the Gospel of Christ 
has not gone and cleared the way, laid the 
foundations and made decency and security 
possible. " 

CHRISTIANITY AND INTELLECTUALITY. 

Now we sometimes hear it claimed, that a 
greater degree of intellectuality has been 
attained in the past than has yet been pro- 
duced under the enlightening influence of 
revealed religion. What if it prove true? 
Christianity shall never bow down before it, 
for who does not know that the intellectual- 
ity of passed ages was hopelessly mixed with 
debauchery and every kind of wickedness. 
To-day the worldly exalt the intellectual, but 
Christianity would humble even them, be- 



THE CASE STATED. 19 

cause sin is universal, and they are not 
excluded from its power; because the edu- 
cated and the gifted are truly said to have 
done more to bring dishonor upon civiliza- 
tion and to threaten society with ruin than 
the unendowed ; because again it is true that 
" perverted education, misdirected shrewd- 
ness and calculating self-regard,' ' can do 
more to trouble and degrade mankind than 
can possibly be equalled by the desperation 
of poverty and the evil design of illiteracy 
combined. 

We unhesitatingly admit, however, that 
the world had learned much in the way of 
art and literature before the advent of the 
Light of the world, and that Greek culture 
and Roman jurisprudence have had a marked 
influence over even our present civilization. 
But when we hear men bemoaning the lost 
arts and saying, e.g. , that we never again shall 
see the equal of the pyramids of Egypt or the 
hanging gardens of Babylon, we can but say 
(albeit somewhat impatiently) that Christ- 
ianity is not concerned with such things. 



20 ANTI-CHRISTIAN CULTS, 

Christianity aims to build character, to teach 
men how to live righteously. It does not ig- 
nore the intellectual in man, nor has it any con- 
troversy with all true science. It encourages 
to the utmost, if it does not take the lead, in 
the effort to teach man u how to speak, how to 
write, how to think, how to build cathedrals, 
paint pictures, and compose sweet songs;" 
and the educational feature is a strong char- 
acteristic of all its foreign missions, but it 
especially teaches men how to curb their pas- 
sions, how to restrain their violence, how to 
enjoy their freedom, how to promote the 
well being of one another. In a word, it 
would knit into one communion and fellow- 
ship the world of men, through the mystical 
Body of Christ. It would destroy enmities, 
dispel all variance, heal all differences and 
bind all classes and conditions of men into 
one loving and beloved brotherhood, under 
the Fatherhood of God, through Jesus Christ. 
It teaches that the only warfare to be main- 
tained is that against the common enemy 
of mankind, sin; while it strives to lessen 



THE CASE STATED. 21 

the ills and woes of man, to assuage pain 
and sorrow, to dispel darkness and misery. 
It would suppress all injustice and selfishness 
in man and enlarge his sympathies, provoke 
him to deeds of beneficence, and instill in 
him the principles of rectitude, that men may 
live soberly, righteously and godly in this 
present world/ ' 

THE KINGDOM OF CHRIST. 

Again, with the author of Ecce Homo, we 
ask : What is the Kingdom of Christ ? 

" It is a world which, whatever its sins, its 
distance from ideal excellence, has recognized 
as the standard of its actions the law, which 
the Son of God spake on the Mount ; a world 
where before His coming only a few wise and 
good men held somewhat of these precepts, 
and dreamed, like Plato, of an imaginary 
republic, but never in their wildest thoughts 
believed that society could be other than the 
selfish, and corrupt, and earthly thing they 
saw about them ; yet every one of these lofty 
maxims has mastered the conscience of men, 



22 ANTI-CHRISTIAN CULTS. 

every one has been received as the acknowl- 
edged pattern of private, of social, of human 
goodness ; when every good thus far attained 
has sprung from the unselfish spirit there 
enjoined, and even in the midst of unbelief, of 
superstition, of worldly policy, this spirit 
to-day labors not in vain ; when every reform 
in the outward condition of mankind, every 
hope of liberty, and peace, and social justice is 
but the undespairing aim of men who believe 
that there is such a thing as a redeemed hu- 
manity ; and this Christendom with its bles- 
sings, its hopes, its toils, its immortal aspira- 
tions, is the growth of the Word He spoke on 
the Mount, He wrought on the Cross. Ecce 
Homo ! Behold the Man ! Behold the relig- 
ion of the Son of God and the Saviour of 
mankind/ J 

ANTI-CHRISTIAN CULTS AND THEIR ADHERENTS. 

Behold the religion that men would give 
up. From this, they turn aside to be com- 
forted by the unreal in Spiritualism, to be 
mystified by the wonders of Theosophy, to be 



THE CASE STATED. 23 

captivated by the deceptive cures of Christian 
Science. 

What these anti-Christian cults, which are 
making inroads into the Household of Faith 
are, we shall attempt to show in succeeding 
chapters. We would now simply seek to 
know who they are that have recourse to 
them. 

First; there are those who would gladly 
be rid of the sense of responsibility for the 
deeds done in the flesh. They may approve 
of what is right but they do not do it. They 
like neither to be compelled to do what is 
right in the sight of God nor to suffer the 
consequences of the evil that they have done. 
This is the law of God and man, but they 
would readily be attracted by any cult that 
claimed to destroy the reality of sin or that 
so expanded the idea of God as to destroy 
His Personality and make of Him an all- 
comprehensive and all-comprehending non- 
entity. It is useless, however. We must all 
appear before the judgment seat of Christ, 
that " every one may receive the things done 



24 ANTI-CHRISTIAN CULTS. 

in his body, according to that he has done, 
whether it be good or bad." 

Next, there are those, poor souls, not well 
grounded in the faith, who know not what 
the Church and Bible teach, who have not 
experienced the comforts of religion and are 
ignorant of the purposes of the Almighty. 
When afflictions come upon them, or even 
adversity, they cannot realize that the Al- 
mighty may have meant it for some good end, 
as He does not willingly afflict or grieve the 
children of men. At first they are stunned, 
next they rebel, then they turn from the only 
help in time of need, to the vanities and 
deceptions of human ingenuity. 

The last class are those who see not in the 
religion of Jesus something to be incorpo- 
rated into and give true character to their 
daily life, something to can-3' them out of 
themselves into the world of loving sympathy 
and beneficence, whose indolence and selfish- 
ness are at the root of all their ills. These 
might interest themselves in the mysterious 
and uncanny or they would selfishly assent 



THE CASE STATED. 25 

to any system or cult that would rid the 
world of all pain and suffering. Do they not 
know that the Master Himself " went not up 
to joy but first He suffered pain: He entered 
not into glory before He was crucified? So 
truly our way to eternal life is to suffer here 
with Christ." 4 ' It is the will of God. His 
eternal purpose cannot be changed. He sent 
His Son into the world that the world 
through Him might be saved. He sent His 
Son to be the Light of the world and marvel- 
lously has He dispelled the darkness. Let us 
then not be led astray and deceived by the 
false counsel and works that be of men, but 
let us open our hearts more and more to the 
truth as it is in Jesus, that we may be forever 
illuminated by the light of truth and life. 

4 Prayer Book Office for the Sick. 



Spiritualism* 

ITS CLAIMS, MANIFESTATIONS AND PHE- 
NOMENA. 

T^HE problem of life and death is indeed a 
mystery. What is before lis? How are 
we to triumph over the temptations that 
allure us, the difficulties that beset us and the 
obstacles that lie in our path, so as to accom- 
plish the purpose for which we were sent into 
the world ? But above all, what becomes of 
us? What are man's condition and circum- 
stances after death ? 

A DEAD FAITH. 

With a dead, worthless faith, many 
go through life, carelessly indifferent to 
these things, living in the narrow, selfish 



SPIRITUALISM. 27 



enjo3 r mentof the hope of temporalities. With- 
out the comforts and benefits of a holy 
Christian living, they are suddenly brought 
in pain and sorrow to confront the great 
problems of life. With no preparation, they 
ask with a cry, that pierces our hearts : 
"What is the purpose of life? What is the 
meaning of death ? Where is my loved one ? 
Why, if there is a God, was I not warned and 
prepared for this great trouble that is come 
upon me ? ' ' Painfully they are made to realize, 
at such a time, the truth of S. Paul's words : 
"Now we see through a glass darkly," enig- 
matical^, as every phase of life is then an 
enigma to them. Hopelessly they admit that 
"now we know in part," and what they do 
not know of life, makes it full of mystery to 
them. The only solution is through faith in 
Jesus Christ, but they have not learned to 
walk by faith rather than by knowledge; their 
faith is dead, and so the door of peace, and 
comfort, and hope is closed to them. We 
cannot chide them, but we do pity them and 
pray that the Almighty "who does not will- 



28 ANTI-CHRISTIAN CULTS. 

ingly afflict or grieve the children of men," 
would sanctify this affliction to their good, 
and in spite of their faithlessness, selfishness 
and rebelliousness, might "so fetch them 
home" again to His flock that they might 
henceforth enjoy the "comfort of a reason- 
able, religious and holy hope." I say: "Fetch 
them home again," because they know that 
there is a much more perfect vision, a much 
more complete knowledge than that now 
vouchsafed them ; but they are not willing to 
wait, till all shall be revealed. They want to 
know now and so they turn from the religion 
of Jesus Christ to attempt the impossible and 
seek through forbidden ways to peer into 
that which Almighty God has concealed be- 
hind an impenetrable veil. 

SPIRITUALISM. 

Their faithlessness, their despair, their 
eagerness for more light makes them easy, 
not to say willing, victims of that relic of 
those ancient heathen religions, whose priests 
trafficked upon the ignorance and supersti- 



SPIRITUALISM. 29 



tion of the people, who lived in darkness and 
had not yet seen the Great Light. I refer, of 
course, to Spiritualism. It is not new. It 
has existed in some form or other almost 
from man's infancy. It is based upon the 
assumption that the spirits of the dead can 
and do communicate with the living, through 
the agency of peculiarly constituted persons 
called mediums, and that certain physical 
phenomena, which transcend all known nat- 
ural laws, are produced by direct action of 
spirits or by spiritualistic power imparted to 
mediums, or others peculiarly susceptible to 
such influence. A partial truth lies at the 
root of this error, for the spirit of man does 
not die, but continues to exist after separa- 
tion from the body; in addition to this, we 
are more influenced by spiritual powers, as 
we go through the earth-life, than we imagine. 
Aside from these facts, we see in Spirit- 
ualism nothing but useless and profitless 
imposition, deceit and trickery, accompanied 
by most mercenary motives. Moreover, if 
these mediums are influenced by spiritualistic 



30 ANTI-CHRISTIAN CULTS. 

powers, they are the powers of darkness not 
of the light, for they are subject (if at all) to 
evil spirits and not to the spirits of departed 
saints. 

MODERN SPIRITUALISM. 

Spiritualism was revived in, or, we may 
say, Modern Spiritualism dates from 1848, 
through the Voss or Fox sisters of Hydes- 
ville, New York, who called attention to the 
various rappings that occurred when they 
were present, and who devised a code of com- 
munication whereby conversation could be 
carried on with the supposed intelligence 
alleged to produce these sounds. From this 
circumstance, quite an impetus was given to 
Spiritualism and large numbers of circles 
were established both in this country and in 
Europe. To what purpose are these circles 
or seances held! Manifestly to record the 
wonderful table tipping, raps, automatic 
writing with pencil or planchette or ouija 
board, writings in a folded slate without vis- 
ible means, trance-speaking or letter-writing; 
the production of physical phenomena, such 



SPIRITUALISM. 31 



as lights, musical sounds, playing upon vis- 
ible or invisible instruments, bringing flowers 
or other material objects into closed rooms, 
the materialization of hands or complete 
human figures, spirit photography, floating 
in the air without visible means of support, 
etc. Such manifestations and phenomena, it 
is claimed, prove the genuineness of spiritual- 
istic communications ; and such communica- 
tions are alleged to be the attested proof of 
the survival of the departed who furnish 
instruction in moral and philosophical knowl- 
edge. 

SPIRITUALISM OF NO BENEFIT SPIRITUALLY, 
MENTALLY, INTELLECTUALLY. 

Now in the first place, we have reason to 
thank" God that the reality of the life beyond 
the grave does not depend upon the flimsy 
prop of Spiritualism, but on the fact of the 
resurrection of Jesus Christ. 

In the second place, what moral ben- 
efit could possibly follow from these alleged 
spiritualistic manifestations, the purpose of 
which is to attempt that which God in 



32 ANTI-CHRISTIAN CULTS. 

His wise providence hath thought wise not 
to permit, or to make clear that which 
God will not now reveal? What comfort 
can the afflicted possibly derive from the 
materialization of a hand or arm or even 
of the whole body of a departed friend, which 
cannot be touched, but must be viewed in the 
dim, uncertain light in which evil revels? 
What solace can be derived from the silly 
twaddle said to be a message from the spirit- 
land? What lack of considerateness, not to 
say love, is manifest in the alleged spirits of 
our departed communicating with us through 
a third party, a stranger, and then only upon 
the assurance that like the Gypsy fortune- 
teller, we must cross the hand of the medium 
with silver? Unfortunately the days of 
superstition and humbuggery are not over, 
and it would seem that the people like to be 
deceived, even as Jeremiah said of old : " The 
prophets prophesy falsely and the priests 
bear rule by their means and my people love 
to have it so." 1 

i Jer. y. 31. 



SPIRITUALISM. 33 



But surely, there can be no moral grand- 
eur, no uplifting of the soul, no broadening of 
the mind, no advance in the way of righteous- 
ness, not even any real or lasting comfort in 
such things as these. In fact in no respect 
has Spiritualism enlightened, advanced or 
benefitted mankind. 

In the third place, as to knowledge, moral 
or philosophical, Spiritualism affords none. 
It has done, it is doing, nothing for the intel- 
lectual improvement of mankind ; it is not a 
benefit mentally or morally. Indeed its man- 
ifestations are not from the spirit-land and 
its phenomena are in no sense supernormal. 

IT IS DECEPTION. 

Its spirit rappings are declared to be 
physiological, as one of the Fox sisters is said 
to have admitted that the rapping by which 
they started the modern phase of Spiritualism 
was produced by a dislocation of their knee 
or other joints and suddenly snapping them 
back again. 2 

2 Before her death she is said to have retracted this 
confession. 



34 ANTI-CHRISTIAN CULTS. 

Slate-writing is simply a trick of legerde- 
main, spirit letter-writing is deceit, spirit 
photograph nothing but composite pictures, 
materialization undoubted tricker} r , while 
many mediums, having been worsted, have 
admitted that they practiced deceit. 

INVESTIGATIONS. 

Most intelligent commissions have investi- 
gated the claims of Spiritualism. The Ley- 
bert commission, from the University of Penn- 
sylvania, after a thorough yet unprejudiced 
examination, declared that they could not 
discover a single novel fact and that they 
could employ men to do the same things done 
by mediums. The Italian commission, before 
whom the Neapolitan medium, Madame Pal- 
ladino, held sittings, was rather unsatis- 
factory, some being convinced of the super- 
normal character of the phenomena, others 
being unable to offer any satisfactory explan- 
ation. This may seem to favor the claims of 
spiritualists who seek to convince by ocular 
demonstration, not by unassailable testi- 



SPIRITUALISM. 35 



monv; but the same claim can be made by 
prestidigitators. With them, we know it is 
trickery; or rather skill in deceiving their 
audiences, they admit it; yet we cannot 
explain how it is done. Moreover, the most 
expert of them stand ready to duplicate any 
phenomenon done by mediums, and that not 
by occult powers, but their own skill. We 
know too that the jugglers of India and 
Egypt are marvellous adepts, but we do not 
know that any supernormal powers are at 
their command. 3 The story has been pub- 
lished of the great prestidigitator, Kellar, 
seeing an Egyptian juggler perform a hang- 
ing in the open before a multitude, when the 
rope came down from above, as from the 
clouds, at his command. No success in the 
attempt to explain this feat was made by 
Kellar until he brought a mirror with him, 
and w^hen it did not reflect the rope (showing 
that there was indeed no rope to be reflected) 
Kellar concluded the whole throng was hyp- 
notized. The field of hypnotism, or mesmer- 

3 Narrated from memorv. 



36 ANTI-CHRISTIAN CULTS. 

ism, presents the widest opportunities for de- 
ception, for making things that are not, as 
though they did appear, for making people 
see things that are not. It affords ample 
opportunity for bewildering and deceiving 
people, but without the necessity of having 
recourse to spiritualistic communications at 
all. If there be anything in what is known 
as the odylic force — that mysterious power 
developed in connection with the brain as the 
nerve centre, and by which it was attempted 
to account for the phenomena of animal mag- 
netism — it is only another link in the chain of 
evidence that demonstrates that these mys- 
terious phenomena are distinctly physiolog- 
ical, and in no way dependent upon spiritual- 
istic communication. 

LIFE'S MYSTERIES AND SPIRITUALISM'S 
UNSUBSTANTIATED CLAIMS. 

We need not to be assured of the truth 
of S. Paul's assertions, "now we see through 
a glass darkly .... now we know in 
part." Life is full of mysteries, and what 



SPIRITUALISM. 37 

little we see reflected as we are passing 
through, makes it one vast enigma. We 
are puzzled, perplexed. We know so little 
that it seems to make the problem of life the 
more difficult of solution. 

We would know more, and Spiritualism 
comes forward w r ith the claim that it can 
communicate with those beyond the veil, and 
through such means is enabled to clear our 
vision and give us that more perfect knowl- 
edge that we crave. It would substantiate 
its claims, not by unassailable testimony, but 
by ocular demonstration, by manifestations 
and phenomena. But these evidences have 
so often been detected as fraudulent, mediums 
have so repeatedly admitted trickery, com- 
missions have so many times declared that 
there was nothing supernatural therein, pres- 
tidigitators so confidently declared their 
ability to reproduce any phenomena said to 
be done by spiritualistic power and have sub- 
stantiated such claims, there are so many 
ways by which all these things maybe shown 
to be physiological phenomena, that the con- 



38 ANTI-CHRISTIAN CULTS. 

elusion is irresistible: Spiritualism does not 
and cannot substantiate its claims. Its 
manifestations and phenomena in no sense 
prove that they are due to spiritualistic com- 
munications or powers. 

CHRIST THE SOLUTION. 

We, however, are passing through this 
earth-life but once. Who then, amid all the 
trials, sorrows, perplexities and mysteries of 
life, can afford to place any confidence, can 
hope for any comfort, from that which is sur- 
rounded with so much fraud, deceit and un- 
substantiated claims? 

On the other hand, Luthardt, in Funda- 
mental Truths says: " Man is a question; 
the word of Christ is its answer. Man is an 
enigma; the word of Christ is its solution. 
In an algebraical equation of three known 
quantities and one unknown, viz., X, the 
value of X being found, the correctness of the 
solution is proven by its perfect accordance 
with the other quantities. And the case here 
is exactly parallel. The word of Christ 



SPIRITUALISM. 39 



satisfies the equation of our nature ; it is the 
solution of the X, of the unknown quantity 
within us." 

Let us not, then, ask for the impossible or 
try to circumvent God and peer into the 
unknown, but let us walk by faith through 
life ; with Christ as our guide, let us abide in 
the truth as it is in Him. Then may we look 
confidently forward to the time when we shall 
see face to face "and know as we are known." 



Spiritualism. 11T* 

SUBJECTION TO SPIRITS. 

TN considering the manifestations and phe- 
nomena whereby it is attempted to show 
the power of Spiritualism, we found the 
claims of spiritual communication not proven 
and the manifestation and phenomena so 
surrounded with trickery, deceit and fraud, as 
to be unworthy of any consideration what- 
ever. Continuing the subject of Spiritualism, 
we would say of those honest, earnest and 
learned men who accept the claims of spirit- 
ualistic communications in good faith, that 
the weight of evidence is against them and 
that men, learned men, may be earnest, sin- 
cere, positive, and yet be mistaken. 

SPIRITUAL EXISTENCE. 

We believe in spiritual existence most 
certainly. We believe that w r e still shall 



SPIRITUALISM. II. 41 

live, though the body crumble in the dust. 
S. Paul, speaking by inspiration, says : 
"Put on the whole armor of God that ye 
may be able to stand against the wiles of 
the devil. For we wrestle, not against flesh 
and blood, but against the principalities, 
against the powers, against the world rulers 
of this darkness, against the spiritual hosts 
of wickedness in the heavenly pi aces/ ' Thus 
forcibly is declared a super- terrestrial exist- 
ence, that the air is infested with these imma- 
terial beings, whose purpose is to tempt, to 
deceive, to lead astray. 

If these be the fallen angels, then there is 
the multitude of the heavenly host, who left 
not their first estate. And no one will dispute 
the assertion that in the doctrine of angels, 
yea in the very being of God, the Bible 
teaches spiritual existences. 

MAN'S SPIRIT. 

Man is made in the image of his God. That 
image must be spiritual, as God is Spirit, and 



42 ANTI-CHRISTIAN CULTS. 

it is the spiritual in man that does not 
die. 1 

Where, then, does man's spirit go at death ? 
It is not left to roam in the earth or to drift 
through the air. Christ said to the penitent 
thief upon the Cross : " To-day shalt thou be 
with Me in Paradise/ ' the beautiful Garden 
of Eden, transferred from earth, the abode of 
the blessed saints in light. 

Moreover, S. Peter declared that during 
those three days when our blessed Lord's 
spirit was separated in death from His human 
body, He went and preached unto the spirits 
in prison. 2 In our Lord's parable of the 
rich man and Lazarus, we find the rich man, 
after death, to be in a place of torments, from 
which there was no escape and which was 
separated from the place where Lazarus and 
Abraham were (Paradise) by " a great gulf." 3 
These passages would indicate that the spir- 
its of the departed are confined in a region, 
beyond the earth, yet short of heaven, w r hich 

1 See Heb. xi. 39, 40 ; Matt. xxii. 30. 

2 1. S. Pet. iii. 19. 3 §. Luke xvi. 23. 



SPIRITUALISM. II. 43 

the Church defines (none too definitely, be- 
cause she knows only in part) as the " place 
of departed spirits/ ' 

THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 

We next inquire: "What has ever been 
learned concerning this Intermediate State 
from those who have appeared from the dead? 
Absolutely nothing. Moses and Elijah, who 
appeared on the Mount of the Transfigura- 
tion and were seen of Peter, James and John, 
talked only with the Lord. 

We turn to the son of the widow of 
Zarephath. to the son of the widow of Nain, 
to Lazarus, the brother of Martha and Mary, 
' whose body lay four days in the grave, and 
we find their lips sealed. There were those 
who came forth from the grave at the resur- 
rection, but they left not a word for living 
humanity. 

Calling to mind S. Paul's being caught up 
into the "third heaven' ' and "hearing un- 
speakable words" which he declared "it was 
not lawful for a man to utter," 4 shall we not be 

±11. Cor., xii. 2-4. 



44 ANTI-CHRISTIAN CULTS. 

justified in concluding that the uniform silence 
of those who have tasted of death , is because it 
is "not lawful" for men to speak on such 
matters ; it is forbidden of God ? 

Moreover, in our Lord's parable, we 
remember Dives pleaded with Abraham to 
send Lazarus to his five brothers, who were 
still living, "that he may testify unto them 
lest they also come into this place of torment." 
To his plea: "If one w^ent unto them from 
the dead, they will repent," Abraham replies : 
"If they hear not Moses and the prophets, 
neither will they be persuaded, though one 
rose from the dead." 

COMMUNICATING WITH THE DEAD. 

As the Lord gave the Jews Moses and the 
prophets, so He hath given us the Church and 
the Bible, to lead us into the way of truth 
and life. These are more persuasive than one 
returning from the dead ; and the inference is 
plain, that no communication shall be sent 
from the dead to help those who will not be 
satisfied with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. 
For in that Gospel we behold the merciful 



SPIRITUALISM. II. 45 

God's message to fallen men that alone can 
be effectual in turning them from their sins. 

Moreover, it is impossible to find in the 
Holy Scriptures any sanction for the consul- 
tation of the dead. Moses and Elijah on the 
Mount of the Transfiguration represented the 
saints of the Lord, both being clothed in 
glorified bodies like His own ; but when Peter 
would make them tabernacles, indicating 
that he would have them remain and abide 
on earth again, behold the vision was swept 
from his sight by a cloud, out of which was 
heard the Voice : " This is My Beloved Son ; 
hear ye Him; " thus plainly teaching that they 
should seek Him alone. 

Again, with the possible exception of 
Samuel (and we firmly believe that Saul 
was deceived, possibly hypnotized, when he 
thought he " perceived Samuel appearing to 
him through the machinations of the witch 
of Endor" 5 ) — with this possible exception, 
there is not in Scripture the slightest intima- 
tion of even the possibility of any communica- 

5 1. Sam., xxviii. 



46 ANTI-CHRISTIAN CULTS. 

tion between the departed in the Lord and 
those who still remain on earth. 

More than this, the Bible nowhere inti- 
mates that the departed can even see what 
may be taking place on the earth. "In one 
instance" says Pember, "it seems to be 
assumed that they cannot. For the Good 
Shepherd, after finding the lost sheep, calls 
His friends and neighbors and bids them 
rejoice with Him. Now His neighbors are 
probably the angels, for they dwell where He 
is, and it is not unlikely that the spirits in 
paradise are His friends. ' Henceforth/ He 
said to His disciples, * I call you not servants : 
for the servant knoweth not what his lord 
doeth : but I have called you friends ; for all 
things that I have heard of My Father, I 
have made known unto you.' 6 It would 
seem, then, that whenever any poor wanderer 
is brought back to the fold, the Lord calls the 
spirits of his relatives and friends who have 
already entered into rest, tells them that the 
lost is found, and rejoices with them in the 

6S. Tohnxv. 15. 



SPIRITUALISM. II. 47 

knowledge that His beloved and theirs is 
reconciled to the Father, and will soon join 
their happy and never ending fellowship. 
But if it be necessary for Christ to announce 
this good news to the blessed spirits, it is 
clear that they cannot be watching their 
friends who are still in the flesh." 7 

ANGELS. 

Scripture speaks repeatedly, however, of 
the ministry of angels, but we are to bear in 
mind that they communicate with man not 
of their own volition, or because influenced 
by man, but as the express messengers of 
God, sent of Him for some specific purpose, 
sent to reveal God's eternal truth. But angels 
are not disembodied spirits, neither are they 
the glorified forms of the departed of this 
world. They are a distinct creation, nor can 
we be like unto them until after the resurrec- 
tion. 8 

EVIL SPIRITS AND DEMONS. 

But the Scriptures do also speak in no 
uncertain measures of evil spirits which war 

7 Earth's Earliest Ages, 344. »S. Luke xx. 35, 36. 



48 ANTI-CHRISTIAN CULTS. 

against the soul and seek to lead men to 
destruction, and S. Paul urges us to put on 
the whole armor of God, because we have to 
wrestle against "the spiritual hosts of wick- 
edness in the heavenly places, " 9 who are 
undoubtedly emissaries of "the prince of the 
power of the air, the spirit that now worketh 
in the children of disobedience.' ' 10 

If, therefore, as S. Paul says : "The work- 
ing of Satan is with all power and signs and 
lying wonders," 11 and the air swarms with 
rebellious spirits, though they be forbidden 
to communicate with man, or to influence him 
to evil, we need not be surprised at the dis- 
obedience, occasional manifestation and open 
interference in the affairs of men, of these 
rebellious spirits. 

I.-SCRIPTURAL REFERENCE TO COLLUSION BE- 
TWEEN EVIL SPIRITS AND MEN.-O.T. 

In the Scriptures we find repeated al- 
lusions to the dealings between men and 
evil spirits, and of the latter taking pos- 

9Eph. vi. 12 (R.V.). lOEph.ii. 2. 

nil. Thess. ii. 9 (R.V.). 



SPIRITUALISM. II. 49 

session of the former. In the enumera- 
tion of those who thus have fellowship 
with demons, and thereby claim super- 
normal powers, Pember enumerates "the 
sacred scribes;" 12 said to be identical with 
the medium writers of to-day; u the wise 
men;" 13 wizards, who claimed greater than 
human power through intercourse with su- 
pernatural beings ; the diviners by omens or 
spirit communications ; the mesmerist, obtain- 
ing oracles through his subject; the augurs, 
divining by flight of birds, etc.; those using 
incantations or magical formulas ; the spell 
binders, who used charms or amulets; the 
consulters of demons; the knowing ones (i.e., 
through associating with spirits); the necro- 
mancers or seekers of the dead; the whisperers 
or mutterers ; the star-gazers ; the deliverers 
of monthly predictions from observations ; 
the sorcerers and astrologers, mentioned by 
Daniel. 

II. -N. T. REFERENCE. 

In the New Testament, mention is made of 
the magi, priests who interpreted dreams and 
12 Gen. xli. 8. ^Ex. vii. 11. 



50 ANTI-CHRISTIAN CULTS. 

omens, who were soothsayers, who seemed to 
be acquainted with the practices of modern 
spiritualism ; the pharmacists, those who use 
drugs, whether for poisoning or as a magic 
potion, who were sorcerers; and those who 
practiced curious magical arts and traf- 
ficked in amulets. "It will be observed," says 
Pember, "that demoniacal arts fall readily 
into three classes. The first comprises all 
kinds of divination by omens, tokens and for- 
bidden sciences; the second, the use of spells 
and incantations as a means of accomplish- 
ing what is desired; and the third, every 
method of direct and intelligent communica- 
tion and cooperation with demons." 14 

I.-SCRIPTURAL CONDEMNATION OF COMMUNI- 
CATION WITH EVIL SPIRITS. -O. T. 

Pember believes in the willing commun- 
ication of men with evil spirits or demons, 
and the Bible would seem to admit and con- 
demn the practice, " Thou shalt not suffer a 

14 See Pember's Earth's Earliest Ages, pp. 256-265. 



SPIRITUALISM. II. 51 

witch to live," 15 says the Law. And, again, 
"A man or a woman that hath a familiar 
spirit, or that is a wizard, shall surely be put 
to death ; they shall stone them with stones ; 
their blood be upon them." 16 

Again, the Lord declared of the Levites 
that they should not learn to do after the 
abomination of the nations in the land of 
promise: " There shall not be found among 
you any one that maketh his son or his 
daughter to pass through fire, or that useth 
divination or an observer of times, or an 
enchanter, or a witch, or a charmer, or a 
consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, 
or a necromancer." 17 

The frequent condemnation in the Law of 
the practices of all kinds of sorcery was neces- 
sary in order to destroy the influence of the 
Egyptian art among the chosen people, and 
to prepare them against similar arts in the 
land of promise. 

Saul, probably at the instigation of Sam- 
uel, set about to exterminate these evil-doers 

is Ex. xxii. 18. is Lev. xx. 27. ** Deut. xviii. 10, 11. 



52 ANTI-CHRISTIAN CULTS. 

so vigorously, that the few that survived 
practised only in secret. And if, in his dis- 
tress at his latter end, Saul himself consulted 
the witch of En dor, we are told the crime 
sealed his doom. 18 

II. -CONDEMNATION IN N.T. 

If in the Old Testament witches, necro- 
mancers, dealers with familiar spirits and 
sorcerers of any and all kinds are commanded 
to be destroyed, so in the New Testament we 
read that " the fearful and unbelieving and the 
abominable .... and sorcerers and idol- 
aters and all liars are to have their part in 
the lake that burneth with fire and brim- 
stone, which is the second death.' ' 

IDOLATRY AND DEMONOLOGY. 

1. This entire system of abominations was 
found of old to be associated with idolatry. 
Now the Bible does assuredly seem to recog- 
nize spiritual existences behind the idols of 
heathenism and declares that these existences 
are demons. It does not dispute therefore the 
fact of their being- but the truth of their pre- 

18 I. Chron. x. 13. 



SPIRITUALISM. II. 53 

tensions. Thus the Lord is said to have pun- 
ished the gods of the Egyptians when he slew 
the first born of man and beast. 19 And when 
Jehovah is declared to be the "God of gods 
and Lord of lords/' 20 to be highly exalted 
above all gods, to be feared above all gods, it 
must be that these gods, with whom He is 
contrasted, are real existences. In Deut. 
xxxii. 17 it is said, " They sacrificed unto 
demons, not to God; to gods whom they 
knew not;" and Ps. xcvi. 5, according to the 
Septuagint, reads : " For all the gods of the 
nations are demons but the Lord made the 
heavens." 

2. In the New Testament S. Paul says: 
"For though there be beings called gods, 
whether in heaven or upon earth — as there 
actually are gods many and lords many — yet 
to us there is One God the Father — and One 
Lord Jesus Christ." 21 

Again, it is S. Paul that says : " The things 
which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to 
demons, and not to God; and I do not wish 

19 Ex. xii. 12 ; Num. xxxiii. 4. 

2 Deut. x. 17. 21 I. Cor. viii. 4-6. 



54 ANTI-CHRISTIAN CULTS. 

you to have communion with demons. Ye 
cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup 
of demons. " 22 

As Pember says : "An idol, the creation of 
man's fancy, is nothing; but it is not possible 
that men could be moved to worship noth- 
ing; there is a real power behind them. The 
heathen think they are sacrificing to Deity; 
but their offerings ascend to demons, and by 
their sacrificial feasts, they establish a fellow- 
ship with unclean spirits, similar to that 
which exists between Christ and His Church. 
It is plain therefore that the evil spirits which 
haunt the air are the beings whom the 
heathen worship, the inspirers of oracles and 
sooth-say ers, the originators of all idolatry, 
the powers that are ever striving by divers 
means to subjugate the human race to their 
sway." 23 

SPIRITUALISM A PART OF THE SYSTEM OF 
DEMONOLOGY. 

As we read the Scriptures understanding^ 

then, we readily infer that from ancient time 

22 I. Cor. x. 19-21. 23 Earth's Earliest Ages, 240. 



SPIRITUALISM. II. 55 

aerial forms, visions, oracles, sooth-saying, 
spirit writing, voices of the unseen, magnetic 
healing, in fact, spirit communications, aug- 
uries, omens, tokens, lucky and unlucky days 
and numbers, potions, amulets, charms, 
fetiches, relics, are part of the countless pre- 
scriptions of demoniacal systems. But modern 
Spiritualism revels in spirit communications, 
spirit writings, visions, oracles and such like. 
Therefore modern Spiritualism too is part of 
this demoniacal S3^stem, part of the plan of 
Satan, to bring men under the influence of 
demons and evil spirits. 

MIND READING. 

But it is asked : How do you explain the 
wonderful things revealed by mediums con- 
cerning past and future? Dean Hart, of 
Denver, writes that when an undergraduate, 
spending his vacation in his father's parish in 
a Yorkshire dale, there came there a conjurer, 
Signor Barnado, with a clairvoyant who 
would describe articles given the conjurer by 
the audience or repeat sentences silently 



56 ANTI-CHRISTIAN CULTS. 

recited. A friend of the Dean's was at the 
time off at his trotiting grounds. Knowing 
well the room in which he sat, the Dean wrote 
him to ask him to be examining his fly book 
at 9 o'clock p.m. At that hour the Dean stood 
up in the audience and said to the conjurer: 
"I have a friend thirty miles from here. I 
want to know what he is doing and where he 
is": declaring that he knew what his friend 
w^as about. Continuing in his own words : 
" He put the question to the blindfolded girl, 
and she began to describe my friend to the 
life, fresh face, his blue spotted necktie, his 
gold spectacles, the mahogany furniture, the 
green figured cloth on the table, the fluted 
silver candlesticks; he was reading a book. 
'What is it about?' asked Barnado. 'I do 
not know' said the girl. 'Turn to the title 
page and read it.' 'There is no title page.' 
Then suddenly after a short pause, she said, 
'It's about fly-fishing.' Now, I said, what is 
the name of the village? Barnado asked me 
if I would tell him, and he would stand near 
me, and away from the platform, but I replied 



SPIRITUALISM. II. 57 

that I preferred not to do so. He then asked 
the girl if she could tell, and after a moment 
or two, she rightly replied : ' Pateley Bridge/ 
As this very interesting episode was in pro- 
gress, I found she was reading my mind. As 
I arranged the furniture in the room, so did 
she; as I pictured the fluted silver candle- 
sticks, so exactly she described them ; and if I 
had put on the end of my tongue that my 
friend was fishing at Timbuctoo, she would 
have said so." 24 

Thus was the power of the medium ex- 
plained without the aid of spirits. And we 
firmly believe that all their wonderful power 
of healing and revealing can be explained by 
means of the subjective mind, the doubled 
consciousness and hypnotic suggestion. 

COMMUNICATIONS FROM EVIL SPIRITS ADMIT- 
TEDLY FALLIBLE AND UNRELIABLE. 

If there can be anything supernormal in 
Spiritualism, however, it is due not to com- 
munication with the spirits of our blessed dead 

24 "A Way That Seemeth Right." Hart. pp. 53-54. 



58 ANTI-CHRISTIAN CULTS. 

but to evil spirits , to demons who are evidently 
lying in wait to deceive. Thus, Croesus, the 
king of Lydia, is said to have consulted the 
Delphic oracle before giving battle to the king 
of Persia. The Pythoness declared : " Croesus, 
if he cross the Halys, will destroy a great 
empire/ ' Too late he learned that the empire 
to be destroyed was his own. 

Ah, whoever consults with evil that 
does not have to pay dearly for it! For 
these utterances of demons are always uncer- 
tain, deceitful and meant so to be. So true 
is this, that a canon of Spiritualism reads : 
" That communications from the spirit world, 
whether by mental impression, inspiration, 
or any other mode of transmission, are not 
necessarily infallible truth ; but, on the con- 
trary, partake unavoidabVy of the imperfec- 
tions of the minds from which they emanate, 
and of the channels through w^hich they 
come, and are, moreover, liable to misrepre- 
sentation by those to whom they are ad- 
dressed. "25 

25 See Earth's Earliest Ages 339. 



SPIRITUALISM. II. 59 

If this is not a sufficient admission of the 
unreliability of such alleged communications, 
then T. L. Harris, in the Spiritualist, for June 
25th, 1875, writes : " There is no dependence 
to be placed on the mere verbal statements of 
spirits as to their real belief. One class de- 
ceives purposely ; they are simply flowing into 
your general thought, and coinciding with 
devout convictions, for the purpose of obtain- 
ing a supreme and ruinous dominion over 
your mind and body. Another class are sim- 
ply parasites, negatives, drawn into the per- 
sonal sphere of the medium, and seeking to 
sun themselves in its light and heat by ab- 
sorbing the vital forces, on which they feed, 
and by. means of which they, for a time, 
revive their faded intelligence and apathetic 
sense. To the Mohammedan, they confirm 
the Koran; to the Pantheist, they deify 
nature ; to the believer in the Divine Human- 
ity they glorify the Word." If these demons 
do reveal things through mediums how 
utterly unreliable and useless such revela- 
tion is. 



60 ANTI-CHRISTIAN CULTS. 

PURPOSE OF DEMONS TO DECEIVE. 

In the case of demoniacal possession, of 
which mention is made repeatedly in the New 
Testament, the demon at times assumes com- 
plete control over the subject in whom it 
dwells. When cast out, as in the case of the 
Philippian damsel, who had a spirit of divin- 
ation (7i£., Pythonian spirit), which S. Paul 
cast out, 26 the subject has no longer this 
alleged supernormal power. 

If, therefore, these demons take possession 
of human subjects in order to interfere with 
the affairs of men, if their purpose is to de- 
ceive, if they are so uncertain that no depend- 
ence can be placed in them, if they can only 
give opinions and are compelled to .confess 
that they know no more than we do, why 
should any mortal be so wickedly foolish as 
to waste time, money and faith consulting 
them? 

If, in the whole Bible, there is not a single 
instance of these spirits of the air influencing 
men for good, in the words of Isaiah why 

2 6Actsxvi. 16-20. 



SPIRITUALISM. II. 61 

should we inquire of them that have familiar 
spirits and of wizards that chirp and mutter : 
should not a people inquire of their God? 
For the living should they inquire of the 
dead ? ^ 

GOD'S CONDEMNATION OF THE PRACTICE OF 
CONSULTING DEMONS. 

Moreover, has not God said in the terrible 
words of the Law : " The soul that turneth 
after such as have familiar spirits, and after 
wizards, to go a whoring after them, I will 
even set My Face against that soul, and will 
cut him off from among his people? " Thus 
would God punish those who consult demons. 

SPIRITUALISM ANTI-CHRISTIAN. 

Now the great abomination of this Spirit- 
ualism, ancient and modern, is that it is 
founded in direct defiance of the laws of God, 
and is based upon an idolatrous substitution 
of evil spirits (demons) for the Living God. 

But we have called it Anti-Christian, and 
S.John declares: "This is Anti-Christ, who 
denieth the Father and the Son." We have 

27 Is. viii. 19. 



62 ANTI-CHRISTIAN CULTS. 

already seen how it adapts itself to Moham- 
medan, Pantheist, or Christian, as the case 
may be. As for the Christ, it ignores Him as 
the Saviour of mankind. It speaks of the Son 
of God as a divine efflux, of the Father and 
the Son as one Person, of Christ as a power- 
ful medium and as a teacher to be classed 
with Buddha, Confucius, Zoroaster. It blas- 
phemously alleges of the Holy Spirit, that He 
is the female element in the Godhead or that 
He is the Holy Breath. It would put com- 
municating spirits (demons) in the place of 
God the Holy Spirit. 

Notwithstanding the Gospel declares that 
"now is the accepted time," and that the 
Lord warns us that the destiny of man is 
fixed in the intermediate state — in the joys of 
Paradise or in the throes of the place of tor- 
ment — Spiritualism teaches that man may 
repair in that state the errors of a mis-spent 
pilgrimage on earth, and that he passes 
through seven spheres. 28 

It teaches that " all crime is unpardonable 

2* Earth's Earliest Ages, 364. 



SPIRITUALISM. II. 63 

and could only be wiped out by personal 
and not by vicarious atonement, as falsely 
taught " 29 in Holy Scripture. 

Thus it is seen that Spiritualism, though 
outwardly tolerant, is really opposed to 
Christianity. It would destroy belief in God 
and the Saviour. It would substitute for 
revealed religion a cult that abounds in 
deceit, trickery and fraud, and that is 
unscathingly condemned and forbidden in the 
Bible. It claims ability to reveal that which 
God has not made known, by a power given 
through communication with the spirits of 
the departed. It has, and can have, no com- 
munication with the spirits of those who are, 
according to the Bible, imprisoned in the 
place of departed spirits. If it has any super- 
normal powers at all, it is due to demons 
who take possession of mediums, evil spirits, 
the spiritual hosts of wickedness in heavenly 
places, against whom we wrestle, the emis- 
saries of the Prince of the powers of the air, 
and the Prince of this world, against whose 

2 9 Ghost Land, p. 43. 



64 ANTI-CHRISTIAN CULTS. 

wiles we need to put on the whole armor of 
God, that we may be able to stand. 

While we may not be able to define the 
powers of these evil spirits, yet we know, 
from the admission of spiritualists, that 
their communications are "not infallible 
truth," but partake of " imperfections," and 
that these spirits " deceive purposely"; yea, 
their purpose is primarily to deceive, to lead 
away from the truth, in order to strengthen 
the power and kingdom of Satan. And shall 
we willingly be deceived ? 

Ah, trust not to lying lips and deceitful 
tongues. There is much that we would like to 
know about this world with its sorrow, toil 
and pain, but a merciful God has willed it other- 
wise. It is not necessary, it is not best for 
us, therefore we will not forsake God and the 
Saviour, to be imposed upon by those who 
claim power to peer beyond the impenetrable 
veil and reveal what God wills not to reveal. 
Instead we will accept God's plan of salva- 
tion and redemption, and trusting upon a 
merciful Father, leaning on a loving Saviour, 



SPIRITUALISM. II. 65 



comforted by the sanctifying Spirit, we will, by 
the grace given us, strive to fulfil our destiny 
in life, do good in our generation and look 
confidently forward to a reunion with our 
dear departed, and to the time when we shall 
see face to face and know as we are known. 



A 



TTbeosopbs. I. 

ITS ORIGIN AND PURPOSE. 

FEW years ago heralds went forth 
throughout the land to proclaim, with 
sound of trumpets, a World's Parliament of 
Religions. It was to be held in connection 
with, an adjunct of, a sort of side light to, 
the World's Fair. It was seized upon by the 
promoters of the latter, just as a^^thing else 
would have been, which they thought might 
be of financial benefit to them in their great 
undertaking. The real object, however, was 
not to advance the cause of that Divine 
organization, the Church Universal, which 
has done so much for the enlightenment and 
happiness of all mankind, which has shown 



THEOSOPHY. I. 67 

itself to be the leaven which can and is, grad- 
ually yet surely, leavening the whole world, 
but in the hope that it might pave the way 
for a sort of composite religion of marts con- 
coction and an universal brotherhood. 

Strange ; but it is not an original idea, for 
one of the alleged purposes of the Theoso- 
phical Society is to form the nucleus of an 
Universal Brotherhood. 

THEOSOPHY DEFINED. 

Theosophy, as its name implies, is con- 
trary to the generally accepted views of 
S. Paul concerning the wisdom and knowl- 
edge of God, that His judgments are unsearch- 
able and His ways past finding out. 1 The- 
osophy is one of those wisdom religions 
which claim to have " special (if not complete) 
insight into the Divine nature and its consti- 
tutive moments and processes. " .... 
"The Science of the Wisdom of God. " "It 
starts with an explication of the Divine 
essence and endeavors to deduce the phenom- 

1 Rom. xi. 33. 



68 ANTI-CHRISTIAN CULTS. 

enal universe from the play of forces within 
the Divine nature itself.' ? 2 " It sees no insolv- 
able mystery anywhere, thrown the words 
chance and coincidence out of its vocabulary, 
and affirms the omnipresence and omnipo- 
tence of law and perfect justice. It postulates 
an Eternal Principle, unknowable except in 
its manifestations, which is in and is all 
things and which, periodically and eternally, 
manifests itself and recedes from manifesta- 
tion — evolution and involution. It affirms a 
spiritual condition after death and number- 
less flesh and blood lives on this and other 
planets. In its practical working, it is a 
most vicious fatalism. It destroys the free- 
dom of the will. It leads man through the 
world (or worlds) according to inexorable 
law. It speaks of a justice that knows no 
mercy under any circumstances. Its doc- 
trines are based upon the ipse dixit of an 
adept, a Mahatma, and there is no appeal 
from their "say so." It must be accepted 
absolutely. 

2 En. Britannica. 



THEOSOPHY. I. 69 



ITS CLAIMS AND ASSUMPTIONS. 

The evolution of man is not, it claims, 
carried out on this planet alone, but is the 
result of many worlds and different condi- 
tions of spiritual and material development ; 
and the earth is one link in the chain of many 
worlds. "All individual spiritual entities 
must pass through the successive worlds of 
the system. " This is the evolution of man. 

Theosophy is claimed to be a religion, a 
science and a philosophy: "A religion, be- 
cause it aims to know, to become and there- 
fore to worship, truth ; a science, because it 
examines by strict analysis all processes in 
nature in order to discover that which is ; a 
philosophy, because by logical synthesis from 
the facts of nature discovered by science, it 
discloses the laws that underlie phenomena 
and govern the universe." 

Its tendency, however, is not to make the 
truth clearer, but to further mystify; it 
claims ability to explain all things, yet it does 
not do so, but asserts that man is not in 



70 ANTI-CHRISTIAN CULTS. 

a condition to understand; it assumes too 
many theories as facts ever to substantiate 
its claims. It assumes the theory of evolu- 
tion; it assumes the doctrine of re-incarna- 
tions ; it assumes that there are such beings 
as Mahatmas; that they can explain all 
mysteries, and that they can and do com- 
municate with man. These fundamental 
principles of Theosophy are not, and cannot 
be, proven. 

ORIGIN. 

Moreover, Theosophy, this very old cult, is 
distinctly and avowedly pagan in its origin, 
and paganism is an emanation from the 
powers of the air, whose aim is the propaga- 
tion of evil among men; and whose gods, 
though false, are real, as implied in the Bible, 
and are to be identified with the evil spirits 
which interfere with the affairs of men, so as 
to perplex, deceive and lead astray. Theos- 
ophy, then, might well be called an emana- 
tion or, considering its claims, a revelation 
of evil spirits. 



THEOSOPHY. I. 71 

Now , as in the days of Gnosticism , we know 
there was an attempt to bolster up the decay- 
ing heathen philosophy and religion by amal- 
gamating with Christianity . So in these latter 
da\^s, w^e find another attempt at amalgama- 
tion in the hope that Theosophy may be the 
leaven that will so permeate as to completely 
change the blessed religion of Jesus Christ. 

"We are told," according to Pember in 
his admirable work on this subject, "that 
Occultism is the wisdom of primal ages, a 
revival of the only true philosophy, held by 
all the great teachers of the world and com- 
municated to the Initiates of the Mysteries. 
And w T e are admonished that Christianity, 
although it did contrive to displace the old 
religions in the West, has proved a failure; 
and that we must, therefore, return to that 
which is better, and confess to the superiority 
of ancient sages." 3 

THE BROTHERHOOD. 

By means of certain heathen symbols 
which Christianity has purified and pre- 
3 Theosophy, p. 36. 



72 ANTI-CHRISTIAN CULTS. 

served, it is claimed that Occultism has been 
handed down from the times of the Mysteries 
to the present. " The only Brotherhood now 
mentioned in the outer world," says Pember, 
"is one which extends its branches through- 
out the East and of which the headquarters 
are reported to be in Thibet." 4 Through the 
advance of modern science and the develop- 
ment of evolutionary philosophy, w^hich fitted 
men for further instruction, these Brothers 
determined to communicate with the world 
and influence its science and religion. They, 
however, were too " etherealized " to associ- 
ate with "coarse human nature," therefore 
they must w r ork through "intermediaries." 

THE AMERICAN MISSION. 

The first of these "intermediaries," we be- 
lieve, was Madame Blavatski, grand-daughter 
of Princess Dolgorouki. Born in Northern 
Russia, in 1831, she married at seventeen, 
Gen. Blavatski, who was 43 years her senior. 

4 See Earth's Earliest Ages p. 400. 



THEOSOPHY. L 73 

She left him after three months. 5 She is said 
to have spent thirty years in the study of oc- 
cult pursuits and travel, and is reputed to have 
practiced Spiritualism. In 1857, she was 
undoubtedly in Thibet. The following year 
she was thrown from her horse and sustained 
a fracture of the spine, and her pln^sical con- 
dition was such that we are not surprised 
that she was susceptible to hallucinations 
and queer notions. Then she spent seven 
years under the immediate direction of the 
Brothers ; she was initiated, then instructed 
for her mission and finally sent out into the 
world to influence its religion and philosophy 
with the doctrines of Occultism. She seems 
to have come to America to begin her mission, 
and in 1875 formed theTheosophical Society. 

ITS OBJECTS AND THEIR ATTAINMENTS. 

The objects of the society are said to be 
threefold : 

1. "To form the nucleus of a Universal 
Brotherhood without an}' distinction what- 

5 See Theosophy, p. 17. 



74 ANTI-CHRISTIAN CULTS. 

ever/' yet in undoubted opposition to the 
Brotherhood of man under the Fatherhood of 
God through Christ Jesus. 

2. "To $tudy ancient literature, religion 
and science" — evidently with the idea of 
destroying the claims of Christianity as the 
only true religion. 

3. "To explore the hidden mysteries of 
Nature and the latent powers of man," with 
the idea of destroying belief in a personal 
God and Father of us all. 

4-. A fourth object, not as yet boldly 
affirmed, is the destruction of Christianity, 
declaring it, as we have seen, to be a failure, 
so that we should "return to that which is 
better and confess to the superiority of 
ancient sages." 

If we ask, how are these objects being 
attained, we are referred to the work : Hints 
on Esoteric Theosophy, 6 in which we learn 
that in 1880 the Bombay branch sent a mixed 
delegation of Hindus and Parsees to assist in 
founding a Buddhist branch in Ceylon, and in 

6 See Earth's Earliest Ages, p. 403. 



THEOSOPHY. I. 75 

1881 the Buddhists reciprocated by sending 
delegates to Tinnevelly to assist in organiz- 
ing Hindu branches, and that they, with Col. 
Olcott, the first American 7 captivated by 
Madame Blavatski, were " received with 
raptured welcome inside a most sacred Hindu 
Temple/ ' This same work sends out the state- 
ment that in 1883 they had seventy branches 
in India "and many thousands of Mo- 
hammedans, Buddhists, Parsees, Christians, 
officials and non-officials, governors and 
governed, have been brought together by its 
instrumentality. " Apparently they are satis- 
fied with its levelling powers. Theosophy 
does not condemn any of these religions but 
would explain them. It would draw all men 
of whatever religions together on the same 
level, and so has its Buddhist branches, Hindu 
branches, Parsee branches. They are not 
asked to change their religions but simply to 
accept the theosophic explanation of them. 

7 In 1875 Col. Olcott went to Vermont, as representa- 
tive of a New York paper, to investigate the spiritualistic 
manifestations of the Eddy Brothers. There he met 
Mme. Blavatski, and soon became a willing disciple. 



76 ANTI-CHRISTIAN CULTS. 

Nominally Buddhists, Hindus, Parsees still, 
they are really Theosophists only. Thus 
they allow us to believe that one can be a 
Theosophist and a Christian at the same 
time, a manifest impossibility. See how it is 
working. It sets forth a universal brother- 
hood, a popular idea that attracts attention. 
It advises a study of the ancient w r orld 
religions, to keep its adherents interested, 
with the possible idea of investigating 
for oneself and increasing one's knowledge; 
a worthy motive. It takes the symbols and 
doctrines so long cherished in the Western 
world and attempts to bring out an esoteric 
theosophic truth underlying the Christian 
error. Then, as published in Isis Unveiled^ 
it furnishes authenticated accounts of all 
crimes and misdemeanors, schisms and here- 
sies, controversies and litigations, doctrinal 
differences and Biblical criticisms and revi- 
sions, with w T hich the press in Christian 
lands teem, and sends them to " Palestine, 
India, Ceylon, Cashmere, Tartary, Thibet, 

8 Isis Unveiled, Vol. I., pp. 41-42. 



THEOSOPHY. L 77 



China and Japan, in all of which countries it 
has influential correspondents. " Its objects 
with us then, may all be reduced to one — the 
overthrow of Christianity and the supplant- 
ing of all other religions with the idea of 
establishing Theosophy or Occultism as the 
one religion of the world. This shall be 
brought about when the twelfth Messiah 
shall come and, harmonizing the perverted 
teachings of his predecessors, shall establish 
"an universal religion which shall recognize 
the Messiahs of all nations.' ' 

THEOSOPHY VS. CHRISTIANITY. 

Behold, then the purpose of putting all 
religions, including Christianity, on a level, 
namel\ r , that out of them as superior, yea, 
supreme, may be evolved an universal reli- 
gion, and that, Theosophy. 

With all our worldliness and insincerity, are 
we ready to give up the religion of Jesus Christ 
for any Eastern mysticism? Are we ready 
to put the religion of Jesus Christ on a level 
with those ancient religions w T hich with all 



78 ANTI-CHRISTIAN CULTS. 

their claims, with all their age, have done and 
can do so little for the advancement of man- 
kind? Are we ready to acknowledge the 
superiority of ancient sages, over the best 
thought of the Western world to-day ? Are 
we ready to give up ourselves into the power of 
a system that claims ability to explain all 
things, yet cannot? Are we ready to return 
to heathen darkness and civilization? The 
one way to do so, is to give up the blessed 
religion of Jesus Christ. If you are not ready 
for these things, then " beloved . . . beware 
lest ye also being led away with the error of 
the wicked, fall away from your own stead- 
fastness/ ' 



Ubeosopbs Iff ♦ 

ITS LEADING DOCTRINES AND FALSE 
POSITION. 

TN considering the origin and purpose of 
Theosophy, we found that it is of pagan 
conception, an attempt through the " superi- 
ority of ancient sages" to build up the old 
world religions, drag Christianity down to a 
level with them, and so harmonize them all, 
that out of them would spring an universal 
religion, which, necessarily would be Theoso- 
phy. It does not attack, directly, Christian- 
ity or any other of the world's religions but 
it would explain the doctrines and S3 r mbols 
that we hold so dear according to theosophi- 
cal truth, which of course would eliminate 



80 ANTI-CHRISTIAN CULTS. 

every Christian belief, hope and purpose 
therefrom. We turn now to its doctrines. 

DOCTRINES-A PERSONAL GOD. 

First, as to our God and Father. We are 
told that the ui Father in heaven' is a well 
known esoteric phrase for the Higher Self, and 
to pray * Our Father, who art in heaven' is, 
in the initiate's mouth, an attempt to ' medi- 
tate on and aspire to the Higher Self.' ' 

Theosophy does not, cannot, admit a 
personal God. It is based upon evolution 
and is pantheistic, as proclaimed by Mrs. 
Besant. To admit the Being of a personal 
God and Creator, the Supreme Ruler of the 
Universe, to whom all creatures do bow and 
obey, would be to destroy the claims of 
adepts, the authority of Mahatmas, and 
undermine the foundations upon which 
Theosophy stands; but to say: " God is all 
and all is God," while not a dangerous 
admission, is a convenient way of robbing 
the Deity of all authority, without denying 
Him actual existence, but the theosophist in 



THEOSOPHY. II. 81 

denying a personal Deity must deny in reality 
the religion of Jesus Christ, the revelation of 
a personal God and Father. 

The interplanetary ether, called in Occult- 
ism, arteal fluid, is declared to be the first 
manifestation of " Substance, " that which 
sub-stands all phenomena ; and its ultimate 
expression is what we call matter. " x Spirit 
and matter are but different states of the one 
substance. The substance of soul and all 
things and the substance of Deity are the 
same. The life of this Substance is called 
God, who, being the Living Substance, is 
both Life and Substance, i.e., two in one. 
What is called (theologically) the Son and 
the Word, which proceeds from these two, is 
"the expression of both and is potentially 
the Universe ;" but the term, "Son of God," 
is a "title assumed by all Initiates, that 
implies the assimilation of the Ego and the 
Higher Self, as does the expression : ' I and 
My Father are One,' " 2 while the Holy Spirit 

iSee The Perfect Way, pp. 17, 18. 
2 See Preface to Theosophy. 



82 ANTI-CHRISTIAN CULTS. 

is looked upon as the female element in the 
Deity. 

CHRIST. 

Christ is declared to be a title given to all 
triumphant initiates who have passed the 
symbolical crucifixion and have become the 
anointed masters of all nature. 3 Our blessed 
Lord then is declared to be simply an Initiate, 
not the Christ but a Christ or an adept who 
has passed through many transmigrations 
and has turned His life to best account by 
development of the higher faculties and 
qualities of man, 4 and He is associated with 
Osiris, Mithras, Crishna Dionysus and Bud- 
dha. Kenealy's Commentary on the Apoc- 
alypse mentions eleven Messiahs: Adam, 
Enoch, Fohi, Brigu, Zoroaster, Thoth, Moses, 
Lao-Tseu, Jesus, Mohammed and Chenzig- 
Khan. While these " Messengers " only af- 
fected particular nations for the most part, 
and their doctrines, through the corrup- 
tion and ignorance of men, seemed contra- 

3 See Article in Lucifer, October, 1891. 

4 See The Periect Way, p. 226. 



THEOSOPHY. II. 83 

dictory,yet a twelfth Messenger is to appear, 
who is to harmonize the perverted teachings 
of his predecessors and establish " a universal 
religion which shall recognize the messiahs of 
all ' nations." ' 

THE TRINITY. 

The doctrine of the Trinity is after this 
manner : " The Divine Substance is, in its orig- 
inal condition homogeneous. Every monad 
of it, therefore, possesses the potentialities of 
the whole. Of such a monad, in its original 
condition, every individual soul consists. And 
of the same Substance, projected into lower 
conditions, the material universe consists. It 
undergoes, however, no radical change of 
nature through such projection ; but its mani- 
festation — on whatever plane occurring — is 
always as a Trinity in Unity; since that 
whereby Substance becomes manifest is the 
evolution of its Trinity. Thus — to reckon 
from without inwards, and below upwards — 
on the plane physical, it is Force, universal 
Ether, and their offspring the Material 



84 ANTI-CHRISTIAN CULTS. 

World. On the plane intellectual, it is Life, 
Substance, and Phenomenon. On the plane 
spiritual — its original point of radiation — it 
is Will, Wisdom and the Word. And on all 
planes whatever, it is, in some mode, Father, 
Mother, Child." 5 Thus with daring blas- 
phemy would Theosophy "explain" to its 
own satisfaction the Christian doctrines con- 
cerning God, the Father Almighty, Maker of 
Heaven and earth and of all things visible and 
invisible, Jesus Christ His Only Son our Lord, 
and the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of 
Life, three Divine Persons yet only one God. 

MAN. 

Turning to man, we find according to this 
revival of the ancient religions, which history 
comments on as one of the epidemics which 
break forth during the last quarter of a cen- 
tury — according to Theosophy, man is not a 
creation of God but the result of development 
in the process of evolution. 

s The Perfect Way, pp. 17, 18. 



THEOSOPHY. II. 85 

EVOLUTION OF MATTER. 

Now Matter is a state of the One Sub- 
stance, the all God, but inferior to the other 
state, Spirit. The all God then is not equally 
developed. He, therefore, may aspire to the 
Higher Self and meditate on the time when 
He shall be all Spirit. He is not then perfect. 
Hence the development of the inferior state, 
through evolution, by which the Material 
Universe, which is the Divine Substance pro- 
jected into lower conditions, shall attain to 
the higher. 

To support this theory, the homogeneous 
monads of the Divine Substance are alleged 
to be incarcerated without individualization 
in something material. This latter must be 
God, for all is God. The monads of God are 
imprisoned in the lower conditions of God, 
but by whom, is probably one of the mys- 
teries of Occultism. 

Who or what starts the process is perhaps 
another of the mysteries, but when started, 
it is described as follows in The Perfect Way: 



86 ANTI-CHRISTIAN CULTS. 

" There is no mode of Matter in which the 
potentiality of personality and therein of 
man, does not subsist. For every molecule is 
a mode of the universal consciousness. With- 
out consciousness is no being. The earliest 
manifestations of consciousness appear in the 
obedience paid to the laws of gravitation and 
chemical affinity, which constitute the basis 
of the later evolved organic laws of nutritive 
assimilation. And the perception, memory, 
and experience represented in man are the ac- 
cumulations of long ages of toil and thought, 
gradually advancing, through the develop- 
ment of the consciousness, from organic com- 
binations upward to God. Such is the secret 
meaning of the old mystery-story which re- 
lates how Deucalion and Pyrrha, under direc- 
tion of Themis (wisdom) produced men and 
women from stones. " 6 

" Passing then at length from the mineral 
Kingdom, " says Pember, 7 "the monad is 
manifested in the lowest modes of organic 

6 The Perfect Way, p. 19. 

7 Earth's Earliest Ages, p. 409. 



THEOSOPHY. II. 87 

life, and at this point is individualized by self- 
generation, and becomes a soul or nucleus to 
the cell in which it manifested itself." "And 
once formed, it is capable, on the breaking 
of its cell, of passing into and informing 
another cell." 8 

Progress is then made through a series of 
lives through the vegetable and animal King- 
doms to man. 

THE SEPTENARY BEING. 

So wonderfully has this process been car- 
ried on that man is found to be a " septenary 
being," for while there are but "four elements 
which constitute him," according to the Per- 
fect Way, i.e. the material body, the astral 
body, the soul or individual, and the Spirit or 
Divine Father, and life of his system, yet the 
soul here is a trinity. Thus Judge and Sinnett 
give man's classification as: (1) The Body, 
(2) Vitality, (3) Astral Body, (4) Animal 
Soul, (5) Human Soul, (6) Spiritual Soul and 
(7) Spirit. The last three form a trinity. 

s The Perfect Way, p. 18. 



88 ANTI-CHRISTIAN CULTS. 

The Spirit or Atma, the Spiritual Soul or 
Buddhi (being the highest power of intellec- 
tion, that which discerns and judges) and the 
Human Soul, the Manas or Mind. This, "the 
real man/' "uses certain agents to get in 
touch with nature in order to know him- 
self." 9 These are found in the lower four 
principles in man, the Animal Soul, or the 
passions and desires, the Life Principle, the 
Astral Body and the Physical Body. These 
four material constituents are transitory and 
subject to separation and disintegration, 
even as " all the organs of the body are sense- 
less and useless when deprived of the man 
within." 10 

RE-INCARNATION. 

The physical body is absorbed at death 
into the material elements whence it came 
forth. The astral body, which can be pro- 
jected from the material body and made ta 
appear at a distance, is the connecting link 

9 See Ocean ofTheosophy, pp. 32-34. 
10 Ocean of Theosophv, p. 34. 



THEOSOPHY. II. 89 

between the ethical and the corporeal, and, 
though it may exist for a while after death 
and hover over the body, is at length dissi- 
pated in and absorbed by the plane of its sub- 
stance. The life energy does not cease at 
death but continues its vibrations in the 
myriad of lives that make up the cells of the 
body, yet no longer animating them. These 
four elements belong to the perishable part of 
man, disappearing at death and reappearing 
at every new birth. The trinity is the thinker, 
the individual that passes from one existence 
to another, gaining experience at each re- 
birth but advancing or receding according to 
its deeds in the previous life. In each succes- 
sive life, one is to others as a new personality 
but in the complete process he is "one indi- 
vidual conscious of an identity, not dependent 
on name, form or recollections of personali- 
ties." n 

This is the doctrine of reincarnation, one 
of the fundamental principles of Theosophy 

11 See Article Theosophy by W. Q. Judge in Johnson's 
Encvc. 



90 ANTI-CHRISTIAN CULTS. 

and necessary to its other scheme of evolu- 
tion, as there could be no evolution of a 
human soul without some such idea of trans- 
migration. Connected with these reincarna- 
tions is the doctrine of Karma, or justice, 
whereby they explain the misery and suffering 
in the world and any national, racial or indi- 
vidual condition is the direct result of the 
past thoughts or actions of the Egos. The 
condition of each re-birth is determined by 
the results of the preceding life according to 
an inexorable law. The thoroughh^ evil 
human souls are finally- bereft of the spiritual 
tie and doomed to annihilation. 

NIRVANA. 

The pure soul, after many reincarnations, 
at length rises to the supernatural state, 
''relinquishes its existence for the being from 
which it was originally projected ; but returns 
with conscious individuality and the full 
advantage of all its experiences. And, return- 
ing, it becomes reunited with the Deity, pre- 
sumably a pure spirit; so that we must 



rHEOSOPHY. II. 91 



conceive of God as a vast spiritual body, con- 
stituted of many individual elements all 
having but one will, and, therefore, being one. 
This condition of oneness with the Divine 
Will and Being constitutes what in Hindu 
mysticism is called the celestial Nirvana." 12 
" Though becoming pure spirit, or God, the 
individual retains his individuality. So that 
instead of all being finally merged in the One, 
the One becomes manv. God becomes mil- 
lions." 13 If God be all, and all is God how- 
ever, what difference does it make ? If God is 
millions, millions are God. Now, that there 
is no personality to God, is an important doc- 
trine of Theosophy, but millions are God, 
God is millions, therefore, there is no person- 
ality to the millions who have attained to 
God ; if no personality, then no individuality, 
if no individuality, then nothing but — in fact 
there is nothing to such existence; and is not 
Nirvana practically nothingness or annihila- 
tion? If so, then after all these processes of 

12 Theosophy, p. 25. 

13 The Perfect Way, p. 19. 



92 ANTI-CHRISTIAN CULTS. 

reincarnation, with all the troubles and 
sorrows, the trials and sacrifices of each life, 
the end, whether you take the regenerate or 
degenerate course seems to be utter annihila- 
tion. 

THE FALL. 

" The fall of man does not mean . . . . 
the lapse .... of particular individuals 
from a state of perfection. ... It means 
such an inversion of the due relations of the 
soul and body of a personality already both 
spiritual and material, as involves a trans- 
ference of the central will of the system con- 
cerned from the soul .... to the body, 
and the consequent subjection of the soul to 
the body, and liability of the individual to 
sin, disease and all other evils which result 
from the limitation of matter." 14 Each indi- 
vidual, of whichever sex, is declared to be a 
dualism, body and soul, exterior and interior, 
masculine and feminine — "he the without, 
she the within." Woman is affirmed to be 
the proper head of creation, and the subjec- 

14 The Perfect Way, 215, 186. 



THEOSOPHY. II. 93 

tion of the feminine to the masculine in the 
individual was the Fall, and the outward and 
visible sign of the Fall is the subjection of 
woman to man in the world. And it is stated 
that only by "the complete restoration, 
crowning and exaltation of the woman, in 
all planes, that redemption can be effected." 15 

THE ATONEMENT. 

Now while the Atonement (at-one-ment) 
is declared to be the unification of the Body, 
Soul and Spirit in the individual, continually 
aspiring to the Divine Spirit, until they con- 
stitute one harmonious system under control 
of the central Will, and redemption consists 
of a series of acts, spiritual and mental, typi- 
fied by the six acts of the Lesser and Greater 
Mysteries, yet the course of human souls, 
released from their incarcerations in stones, 
is, that after they have progressed so as to 
"know the truth/ ' they will be able — whether 
Jews, Christians, Buddhists, or Mohammed- 
ans — to unite in a universal belief of the doc- 



15 See Theosophy, pp. 414, 415. 



94 ANTI-CHRISTIAN CULTS. 

trine that sin is expiated by transmigrations 
and in the worship of "the Great Goddess. " 
Probably this is the " twelfth Messiah, " and 
a female, the " Second Eve and the Mother of 
all Living." 

In this system they speak of mind, intelli- 
gence, consciousness and will, as attributes 
of Deity, and yet deny the existence of a Per- 
sonal God — a manifest contradiction. Pos- 
sessing these attributes, God must of neces- 
sity be a person, but Theosophists are con- 
tent to simply deny that which controverts 
their whole theory. But neither have they 
need of a Saviour. Man can redeem himself 
and expiate his sin by transmigration. He is 
made perfect through suffering. " To deprive 
any one of it by putting the consequences of 
his acts upon another, so far from aiding one, 
would be to deprive him of his means of 
redemption."} 6 

KARMA. 

There can be no substitution, no pardon, 
no alleviating circumstances. The conse- 
16 Perfect Way, 218. 



THEOSOPHY. II. 95 

quences of man's thoughts and acts follow just 
as surely, and in the same ratio, as effect fol- 
lows cause, according to that inexorable law 
that govern all things animate and inanimate. 
What then is man, according to Theos- 
ophy, but a mere passing phase in its process 
of evolution? As soon as his soul is released 
from incarceration in the rocks, and he be- 
comes a sentient being, he finds himself sub- 
ject to inexorable law. This is Karma or 
Theosophical justice, "the ethical law of 
causation." It is unchangeable and remorse- 
less. It cannot be set aside. It has to be 
met and fully satisfied. Prayer then becomes 
a mockery ; your piteous cry in agony for 
mercy, is simply lost upon the wind; your 
sincere profession of repentance is utterly 
powerless to effect the consequences of your 
act upon yourself ; a mistake of judgment 
counts the same as a deliberate purpose to 
sin, and so, too, the mother who would 
relieve her child of the suffering occasioned b} r 
accidentally burning its finger would be de- 
priving it of its means of redemption. 



96 ANTI-CHRISTIAN CULTS. 

This is Karma, "the most important of 
the laws of nature," "the universal law of 
harmony/ ' "the twin doctrine to re-incarna- 
tion. " 17 Your present condition was settled 
as a consequence of your acts in a previous 
life, and your acts in the present life will 
determine your condition when you again 
become incarnate. You have not the slightest 
recollection of a previous existence, and so 
cannot profit by it. You must get as much 
satisfaction as you can from the fact that, if 
your condition is one of poverty and obscurity 
to-day, in a previous existence, of which you 
have no recollection, you may have been as 
rich as Croesus and of royal blood, or that 
upon the next turn of the cycle you may go 
up or down according to the unintentional 
mistakes you may make in this life. 

MAHATMAS. 

Now on what grounds are we to give up 
our belief in a Personal God, Who is a merci- 
ful and heavenly Father, in a loving Sav- 

17 Ocean of Theosophy, p. 89. 



THEOSOPHY. II. 97 

iour Who redeemed us with His own precious 
blood, in a sanctifying Spirit Who is the 
" Lord and Giver of Life," in the ever blessed 
Trinity who is so marvellously enlightening 
the world, according as man is enabled to 
comprehend ? Upon what grounds are we to 
give up the glorious Gospel which has lifted 
man in the West out of Eastern darkness and 
misery, which fills him with a progressive 
spirit, which makes it possible for him to 
enjoy life here and to be eternally blessed 
hereafter? Upon what grounds are we to 
give up the joys, the benefits, the comforts of 
the religion of Jesus Christ, and turn back 
to take up with a machine sort of religion 
which makes man a mere process in the evo- 
lution of matter into spirit? 

Theosophy says man "has never been 
without a friend, but has a line of elder 
brothers, who continually watch over the 
progress of the less progressive, preserve the 
knowledge gained through aeons of trial and 
experience, and continually seek for oppor- 
tunities of drawing the developing intelligence 



98 ANTI-CHRISTIAN CULTS. 

of the race, on this or other globes, to con- 
sider the great truths concerning the destiny 
of the soul." 18 Now these "highly developed 
men," "perfected from other periods of evolu- 
tion," are variously called Masters, Adepts, 
Brothers, Initiates, Mahatmas, meaning 
great souls — these invisible beings who ap- 
pear and disappear at will, who travel from 
place to place with incalculable rapidity — 
these are they who know all things, who can 
explain the Mysteries, who told Madame 
Blavatski all she knew of the Theosophy, 
who enlightened Col. Olcott, who so inspired 
the writers of " The Perfect Way 11 that they 
claim not to be its authors. Yet these 
" etherealized beings cannot be seen by 
'coarse/ ' materialized ' " mortals, only by 
those who have been evolved into the same 
plane of consciousness. 

Of course Theosophy can in this way assure 
us of the truth of its theory ; it can explain 
all things, for the Mahatmas know the truth 
and understand all the mysteries. They can 

18 Ocean of Theosophy, p. 3. 



THEOSOPHY. II. 99 

explain but do not, because you have not 
attained to the same plane of consciousness, 
and so could not comprehend what was com- 
municated. You by chance meet a little boy 
hurt, disconsolate and crying as if his heart 
would break. You try to soothe him, and 
say, u Cheer up, little man; some day you 
may be President." So Theosophy sa\<s to 
the disconsolate beings of earth, who crave 
the explanation Theosophy claims to have 
but does not give: "Cheer up; man is only 
18,000,000,000 years old. 19 You are not 
now on such a plane of consciousness that 
you can understand. You must be evolved 
(ground out in this machine) again and again 
and after one or two million years of such 
reincarnations, you may become an adept, a 
Mahatma, and know all things ; few ever 
attain to such heights, but it is possible, even 
for you. In the meantime, you must be con- 
tent with what the Mahatmas think you are 
able to understand, and you are to have 
implicit faith in it as coming from them. 

19 Ocean of Theosophy, p. iii. and 18. 



100 ANTI-CHRISTIAN CULTS. 

The only adepts specifically mentioned are 
the Asiatic Brotherhood, and they are invisi- 
ble ; too ethereal to communicate with coarse 
mortals, and need intermediaries ; so that you 
do not get the ipse dixit of the Mahatma at 
first hand but must depend on the assertion 
of the intermediary. 

CLAIMS AND THEIR EXPLANATION. 

Theosophists talk of telepathy, mind read- 
ing, hypnotism and the alleged astral body 
which can be projected from the material 
body. They claim power to influence people 
separated from them by great distances; 
give ocular demonstration of their occult 
powers, and then, if you cannot explain 
their phenomena, w^ould have you admit the 
truth of their claims and assertions. Like 
Spiritualists, they would convince you by 
ocular demonstration rather than by indis- 
putable testimony which cannot be furnished. 
Not having such testimony, however, we 
prefer to explain its phenomena and allega- 
tions. We would again refer to the subjective 



THBOSOPHY. II. 101 

mind. We would see a basis for the theory of 
an astral body in the double consciousness, 
a basis for the theory of reincarnations in the 
fact of life after death. So much then for the 
modicum of truth underlying the system. 
As to the invisible Asiatic Brothers flitting 
around the world in ghostly form and making 
communications to the select, it is nothing 
but a scheme advanced to aid in deception. 
Thus we are not surprised to hear that Mme. 
Blavatski, the founder of the society, was 
"an artist in chicanery and a trickster, not 
only for gain but also for glory. " 20 It ap- 
pears 21 that the Society for Psychical Re- 
search investigated the marvellous transpor- 
tation and duplication of objects and the 
miraculous conveyance of Mahatma letters. 
The result was a revelation of trickery. 
Dishes broken, as if by accident, were picked 
up, tied in a cloth and put in the Shrine and 
the door locked. In a few moments the 



20 "Mme. Blavatski and Her Dupes," Current Liter- 
ature, Feb., 1898, p. 104. 

21 See same article, Current Literature, pp. 105, 106. 



102 ANTI-CHRISTIAN CULTS. 

dishes were found as good as new. This was 
said to be done by Mahatmas but it was for- 
gotten to be stated that the accident was 
premeditated, that the Shrine was connected 
with Mme. Blavatski's bedroom and that 
when those dishes were purchased in Madras, 
duplicates w r ere also procured. 

Again, the mortar in one of the interstices 
between the blocks of wood in a ceiling of a 
room in a certain house being scraped out, 
a letter in the well-known handwriting of a 
Mahatma was inserted and held in place by 
a thread. When the conversation led up to 
the proper subject, at a given signal, an 
accomplice would pull the thread and the 
letter from Mahatmadom would fall to the 
floor. By mere accident a package of the 
Chinese envelopes in which the letters, " ac- 
tually " conveyed from Thibet, were wont to 
appear, were found by M. Solovyofif, and 
Madame Blavatski said to him: M What is 
one to do, when, in order to rule men, it is 
necessary to deceive them ; when they will 
not accept even the doctrines of Isis Unveiled 



THEOSOPHY. II. 103 

without the sanction of miracles ; when their 
very stupidity invites trickery, for almost 
invariably, the more simple, the more silly, 
and the more gross the phenomenon, the 
more likely it is to succeed ? " 

So it would seem that from the very foun- 
dation of the cult, it is surrounded with 
fraud, trickery and deceit. 

BROTHERS, ADEPTS, M AH ATM AS-USELESS CRE- 
ATIONS OF THE IMAGINATION. 

The whole scheme of Theosophy, however, 
with its theories of evolution and re-incarna- 
tions, is made to depend on these alleged 
Mahatmas, the Masters of the Mysteries and 
communicators of the truth. But who are 
they? " Highly developed men." 22 But since 
the world began, there has not been one 
single authenticated instance of a mortal, in 
the flesh or out of the flesh, returning from 
the dead, to communicate with the living and 
reveal things known to them, because they 
have passed into the higher life and see things 
clearer. 

22 Ocean of Theosophy, iii. 



3 04 ANTI-CHRISTIAN CULTS. 

Passages in the Bible, cited in a previous 
lecture, prove that when man dies he goes to 
a definite place, "the place of departed spir- 
its," either Paradise or a "place of torment " ; 
that they are " spirits in prison," i.e., confined, 
and cannot get back to earth to communicate 
with the living or to be re-incarnated. There 
is absolutely no proof of such beings as Mahat- 
mas and consequently no such communica- 
tion of the alleged truth of Theosophy. If, 
however, Theosophy can demonstrate any- 
thing not hitherto known, it shows that the 
Eastern religionists have had some insight 
into the phenomena of the subjective mind of 
man, long in advance of their brethren of the 
West, and not yet thoroughly understood. 
Pember then may be right in saying, "the 
whole system of the mysteries was communi- 
cated by the fallen angels," 23 and with the 
object of destroying faith in the Lord Jesus 
and prolonging the reign of the Prince of this 
world. 

23 Earth's Earliest Ages, p. 421. 



THEOSOPHY. II. 105 



THEOSOPHY VS. CHRISTIANITY. 

Look into this evil system of evolu- 
tion, re-incarnation, fatalism and annihila- 
tion, which mystifies rather than instructs, 
which claims the power to explain all things 
yet cannot. Compare it with the religion of 
the glorious Gospel, with all that it has 
accomplished for the enlightenment and ad- 
vancement of man, for his peace, his comfort, 
his happiness, here and hereafter; how it fills 
him with hope; how, as he lends himself to 
its influence, it lifts him unto a higher and 
higher plane of righteousness, punrtry and 
sanctity, not in alleged future lives but in 
this life. And is there a soul who has 
enjoyed the privileges of living in Christian 
lands, and who knows of the darkness, 
wretchedness and slavery of heathenism, that 
is going to acknowledge the " superiority of 
ancient sages ; " that will relinquish the hope 
of the Gospel for the inexorable law of Karma 
or Fatalism; that will turn from the truth, 
as it is in Jesus, because of the alleged sayings 



106 ANTI-CHRIS TIA N C UL TS. 

of alleged beings called Mahatmas ; that will 
renounce the Kingdom of Heaven for Nirvana 
or annihilation ; that will refuse henceforth, 
to offer tip on bended knee a prayer to " Our 
Father, Who art in heaven"; to cry out for 
pardon unto the Merciful Saviour and to 
plead for the sanctifying influence of the Holy 
Spirit, in order to be declared a part of the all 
God who is being evolved from gross matter 
to pure spirit ? 

The old world religions have had their 
time and proved themselves unable to ad- 
vance humanity. To what purpose then 
would you study them ? That universal 
brotherhood is a great way off, if we all have 
to wait till we are sufficiently evolved, that 
we can be initiated into the Lodge and be- 
come an adept, a brother. Through the 
inspiring and enlightening influences of the 
Gospel, we, in the West, are gradually learn- 
ing more and more of the hidden mysteries or 
intelligent forces in nature and of the latent 
powers or psychic forces in man, so that as far 
as the objects of Theosophy are concerned, it 



THEOSOPHY. II. 107 

really has no reason for being. We turn from 
it in disgust, and, falling on bended knee, pray 
to "Our Father, who art in heaven," to 
"lighten our minds more and more with the 
light of the everlasting Gospel," that we may 
serve Him faithfully in our generation and be 
gathered to our fathers ' 4 having the testimony 
of a good conscience; in the Communion of 
the Catholic Church ; in the confidence of a 
certain faith; in the comfort of a reason- 
able religious and holy hope; in favour with 
Thee our God and in perfect charity with the 
world," 24 through Jesus Christ our Lord. 

24 Praver Book. 



Cbtisttan Science* f . 

ITS ORIGIN AND METAPHYSICAL AND THEOLOG- 
ICAL TENETS. 

COR some unexplained reason the last quar- 
ter of a century seems to be favorable to 
the attempt to restore the ancient religions 
and undermine the Gospel of Jesus Christ. 
So far, then, as their hostility to the Gospel is 
concerned, Theosophy and Christian Science, 
which originated about the same time, go hand 
in hand. Both were given to the world in 
1875, and both owe their origin to a woman. 
Another strange coincidence — Madame Bla- 
vatski dabbled in Spiritualism for awhile, 
but met with an accident in Thibet, being 
thrown from her horse, and while in a del- 



CHRISTIAN SCIENCE. I. 109 

icate state of health, when one's mind is 
easily affected, is said to have passed seven 
years under instruction of Mahatmas and to 
have emerged in 1875, ready to instruct the 
world in Theosophy. 

Mrs. Eddy, being in poor health in 1862, 
consulted a distinguished mesmerist, one P. 
P. Quimby. Later she, too, met with an acci- 
dent which, according to physicians, must 
prove fatal. She cured herself, however, 
before the next noon. She went into retire- 
ment, and, after three years, she came to the 
conclusion that her recovery was in accord- 
ance with spiritual laws that could be known 
and utilized. She then began to teach and 
write. The result was her great work. 
Science and Health (the 132nd edition of 
which is before us), was written, but not 
given to the world till 1875. 

NAME. 

Mrs. Eddy claims to be the original dis- 
coverer of her method of healing, and to have 
been the first to use the term Christian 



110 ANTI-CHRISTIAN CULTS. 

Science for this alleged Metaphysical Healing. 
Now a patent medicine vender, putting a cer- 
tain nostrum upon the market, gives it what- 
ever name he chooses and has a certain pro- 
prietary right to that name, which may in 
time have a decided marketable value. So 
Mrs. Eddy is entitled to all the honor and 
emoluments that may be attached to the 
name "Christian Science." So far as her 
theory is concerned, however, we hope, before 
we get through, to show that she has discov- 
ered a subtle force or power in man, the 
nature of which is not yet well known, but 
has been used by others, under various names 
for ages, and that Christian Science itself 
does not do the healing. When we pause to 
inquire into the appropriateness of the name 
given to this method, we find it a misnomer, 
because it is not Christian and it is not 
science. 

NOT CHRISTIAN. 

It is not Christian, for it denies the Christ 
of history, and invents another. It claims to 
be founded upon the Holy Scriptures, yet, 



CHRISTIAN SCIENCE. I. Ill 

whenever they controvert any of its tenets, 
they are twisted and perverted in the effort 
to assign to them an unnatural and false 
interpretation. Thus in Science and Health, 
the sole authority for the doctrines of Christ- 
ian Science according to Mrs. Eddy, its 
author, a distinction is made between Jesus 
and the Christ. " Jesus was the Virgin's Son. 
. . . . Christ is not properly a synonym 
for Jesus. " Evidently Christ is not synonym- 
ous but identical with the Holy Ghost, as 
Mrs. Eddy saA r s : " Throughout all genera- 
tions, both before and after the Christian era, 
the Christ, as the spiritual idea — as the Holy 
Ghost, the Comforter — has come, with some 
measure of power and grace, to all those pre- 
pared to receive Him." Again, when "the 
disciples were first called Christians, " it is a 
common notion that they were so called after 
a person, not an idea, not even after a 
"title," 1 but after the Person to Whom that 
title "the Christ" belonged. When "the 

1 All quotations in this chapter, unless otherwise 
noted, are from Science and Health, 



112 ANTI-CHRISTIAN CULTS. 

people were in expectation and mused in their 
hearts of John whether he were the Christ/ ' 2 
they had reference to that Person who was to 
come to fulfil prophecy. When then Andrew 
said to Peter: " We have found the Christ/' 3 
he brought him to Jesus. But when in re- 
sponse to the question : " Whom say ye that 
I . . . . am?" Peter declared of Jesus: 
"Thou art Christ, the Son of the Living God.' ' 
Mrs. Eddy declares it means : " The Messiah 
is what thou hast declared — Christ, the divine 
idea of Truth and Life, which heals mentally." 
We have no hesitation in saying that the 
words bear no such interpretation and that 
a theory based on such forced and false inter- 
pretation of the Word of God cannot be 
Christian. 

NOT A SCIENCE. 

As to its claims to be a science, Dr. 
Jewell well says: " Science reaches truth 
only through investigation, experiment and 

2 S. Lukeiii. 15. 

3 S. John i. 41. 



CHRISTIAN SCIENCE. I. 113 

disco very — not through revelation. ° 4 Mrs. 
Eddy, however, declares God fitted her for 
"the final revelation of the absolute princi- 
ple." "Science is classified knowledge, but 
here is no intelligible classification what- 
ever. " 5 " Science aims not only to be exact 
in its statements but also to set forth . . . 
logically the truth of its conclusions. But 
Christian Science appears to rely wholly upon 
mere assertion, iterated and reiterated with- 
out an\ r semblance of close or systematic 
reasoning; " 6 and finally, as it simmers down 
to a method of "mind healing," being with- 
out classified knowledge in one homogeneous 
field of truth, it is not a science at all but at 
best can only claim, like surgery or medicine, 
to be an art which is "the application of 
knowledge or skill in effecting a desired 
result." 7 But under whatever name we 
investigate it, whether as an art or science, a 
religion or philosophy, we will find that it 
cannot stand the test of common sense. 



4 Claims of Christian Science, p. 14. 

5 Ibid. p. 14. 6 Ibid. p. 15. 7 Webster. 



114 ANTI-CHRISTIAN CULTS. 

FOUNDATION. 

Mrs. Eddy, who discovered this Science of 
Metaphysical Healing in 1866, says: " God 
had been graciously fitting me, during many 
years, for the reception of a final revelation 
of the absolute Principle of Scientific Mind- 
healing." " No human pen or tongue taught 
me the Science contained in this book, Science 
and Healthy and neither tongue nor pen can 
overthrow it ... . the Science and Truth 
therein will remain forever/ ' " Christian 
Science is indivisible. There can be but one 
method of teaching." 

Quoting Rev. x. 1, 2, 9, concerning the 
angel from heaven with "the little book" 
and the command to eat it, she makes the 
angel to be " Divine Science which, when 
understood, is Truth's prism and praise," 
and " the little book" to be the revelation of 
Divine Science." Then she declares: " Mor- 
tal, obey the heavenly evangel. Take up 
Divine Science. 8 Read it from beginning to 
end. Study it, ponder it." 

s At $3.00 per volume. 



CHRISTIAN SCIENCE. I. 115 

THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 

Again, the discovery of this healing power 
is declared to be the second coming of Christ, 
or the second coming of the Gospel of " peace 
on earth and good will to men." 

In her letter, read at the dedication of the 
Christian Science church in Chicago, last No- 
vember, Mrs. Eddy refers to a prophecy of 
Daniel in order to make the same claim. 9 

This seems dangerously near blasphemy in 
the person who, in the desperate attempt to 
found her theories upon the eternal verities, 
alleges that she was " called of God to pro- 
claim His Gospel to this age"; that Christ- 
ian Science is of " Divine origin"; that 
Jesus practised according to its rules ; that, 
though He loved mankind, and gave the holy 
commission to His Apostles to preach and 
teach, yet He " left no definite rule for demon- 
strating His Principle of healing and prevent- 
ing disease," so that it remained unknown 
until " discovered through Christian Science." 

9 See Chicago Tribune, Nov. 15, 1897. 



116 ANTI-CHRISTIAN CULTS. 

I say this is dangerously near blasphemy, 
so near that, unless its claims can be firmly 
established, it is blasphemy. But with such 
plenary inspiration, such marvellous revela- 
tion, such sure foundation, such unquestion- 
able sanction, such wonderful "demonstra- 
tion" as witnessed in the miracles of Jesus, 
we might reasonably expect to find in 
Christian Science, called also Divine Science, 
Spiritual Science, Science of Being, or Science 
(the terms are interchangeable), the perfec- 
tion of art, and we are amazed beyond meas- 
ure that its discoverer could so far forget her 
' 'calling" as to declare that she u takes no 
patients and declines medical consultation." 

ITS PHILOSOPHY. 

Reserving the consideration of its thera- 
peutics and its popular craze for a subsequent 
lecture, we turn to examine its philosophy 
and theology. 

The fundamental propositions of Christ- 
ian Science summarized in the four (to the 
author) self-evident propositions, are : (1) God 



CHRISTIAN SCIENCE. I. 117 



is All in all; (2) God is Good, Good is Mind; 

(3) God, Spirit, being all, nothing is matter; 

(4) Life, God, omnipotent Good deny death, 
evil, sin, disease — disease, sin, evil, death deny 
Good, omnipotent God, Life. 

4 'The metaphysics of Christian Science, 
like the rules of mathematics, prove the rule 
by inversion. For example : there is no pain 
in Truth and no truth in pain; no nerve in 
Mind and no mind in nerve; no matter in 
Mind and no mind in matter; no matter in 
Life and no life in matter ; no matter in Good 
and no good in matter." 

BERKELEYISM. 

What meaning is intended to be conveyed 
by the above propositions, what proven, it 
would be difficult to say. It may be taken 
as a specimen of the unintelligible character of 
a most pretentious work but one that is found 
to be a most illogical, disconnected, bewilder- 
ing and incomplete conception of the idealism 
of Bishop Berkeley. Bishop Berkeley, 1685- 
1753, one of the profoundest thinkers in an 



118 ANTI-CHRISTIAN CULTS. 

age of grea t men— that of Locke, Swift, Butler, 
Addison, Pope and others — contended for the 
unreality of all things outside of his own 
mind. He was carried to extreme views by 
his opposition to the materialism and athe- 
ism of the time. However, his " system " was 
neither consistent nor complete but much of 
it remains sound. In brief, he contended that 
matter has no independent existence, but is 
an idea in the supreme mind, which is realized 
in various forms by the human mind. With- 
out mind nothing exists. Cause cannot exist 
except as it rests in mind and will. All so- 
called physical causes are merely cases of 
constant sequence of phenomena. Far from 
denying the reality of phenomena, Berkeley 
insists upon it; but contends that reality 
depends upon the supremacy of mind. Ab- 
stract matter does not and cannot exist. The 
mind can only perceive qualities of objects, 
and infers the existence of the objects from 
them ; or, as a modern writer tersely puts it : 
The only thing certain is mind. Matter is 
a doubtful and uncertain inference of the 



CHRISTIAN SCIENCE. I. 119 

human intellect. 10 Mrs. Eddy repudiates the 
charge that her ideas are borrowed, but when 
the underlying principle of her system may be 
tersely expressed in the declaration that " mat- 
ter is non-existent, mind, and mind alone, 
exists," we find a striking similarity of ideas. 
"The ' discovery ' of Mrs. Eddy must be lim- 
ited to the practical application of this prin- 
ciple to human life. She insists that as mat- 
ter does not exist we should always treat it 
as non-existent. In this, she is truly original ! 
The few anti-materialistic philosophers have 
never attempted to carry out this principle." 11 
Concerning this "matter " which is defined 
as an " illusion "" intelligence .... in non- 
intelligence," "sensation in the sensation- 
less," Mrs. Eddy writes: "Nothing we can 
say or believe regarding matter is true, except 
that matter is unreal and is therefore a belief." 

THE SENSES. 

If we appeal to the senses to controvert 
this statement, we are met by the declaration 
that "the material senses cannot bear reliable 

1° World's Best Lit., Vol. IX., p. 1804. 
11 Churchman, April 11, 1896, p. 490. 



120 ANTI-CHRISTIAN CULTS. 

testimony. " "Any supposed information 
coming from the body or from inert matter, 
as if they were intelligent, is an illusion of 
mortal mind — one of its dreams " — for 
" Christian Science sustains with immortal 
proof, the impossibility of any material sense, 
and defines these so-called senses as mortal 
beliefs, whose testimony can neither be true 
of man or his Maker. " " The corporeal 
senses are the only sources of evil or error. 
Christian Science shows them to be false; 
since matter has no sensation, and no or- 
ganic construction can give it hearing and 
sight or make it the medium of Mind .... 
A wrong sense of God, man and creation is 
non-sense or want of sense.' ' 

We cannot refrain from the declaration 
that there is much "non-sense" found in 
Christian Science, which attempts to over- 
throw the well-nigh universal testimony of 
mankind that matter does exist and that the 
evidence of the senses are trust worthy. Yet 
it is the very object of Christian Science to 
dispel this error, this belief of mortal mind. 



CHRISTIAN SCIENCE. I. 121 



Another object is, to arouse man out of a walk- 
ing dream. " The history of error is a dream 
narrative. The dream has no reality, no in- 
telligence, no mind; therefore the dreamer and 
dream are one; for neither is true or real." 
" Mortal existence is a dream," and "there 
is not any more reality in the waking dream 
of mortal existence than in the sleeping 
dream." Man then has been compared to one 
suffering from delirium tremens, everything 
that he senses is an illusion of mortal mind, 
but "Mind (immortal mind) must be found 
superior to all the beliefs of the five corporeal 
senses and able to destroy all ills." "Sin, 
sickness and death are to be classified as 
effects of error." We do not suffer. We think 
we do, but it is all an error, an illusion. We 
are not ill. Indeed, "sickness is an illusion 
to be annihilated by Mind. Disease is an ex- 
perience of mortal mind." 

MIND. 

We must, however, distinguish between 
Mind and mortal mind. 



122 ANTI-CHRISTIAN CULTS. 

Mind is the "only Principle, Substance, 
Life, the one God; the only I, the only Us.' ' 
' • The only exterminators of error are the great 
truths that Good, or God, is the only Mind." 
"Mind is immortal, and as Mind is never 
sick, so man cannot be." 

" Mortal mind accepts the erroneous mate- 
rial conceptions of life and joy," and is 
"nothing claiming to be something, an error 
creating other errors ; .... a belief that life 
substance and intelligence are in and of mat- 
ter, the subjective states of error," etc., the 
material senses. " Mind is the grand creator, 
and there can be no power except that which 
is derived therefrom." "The struggle for 
the recovery of invalids goes on, not between 
material methods but between mortal minds 
and immortal Mind. The victory will be on 
the patient's side only as immortal Mind, 
through Christian Science, subdues the human 
belief in the disease." Now "mortal mind 
and body are one. Neither exists without 

the other "Mortal matter, or body, 

is but a false concept of mortal mind," and is 



CHRISTIAN SCIENCE. I. 123 

full of mortal belief or error ("a supposition 
that pleasure and pain — that substance, intel- 
ligence, life — are existent in matter"), "and 
must be changed by immortal Mind/' and 
not by "drugs and hygiene" or any kind of 
"medication." "Drugs and hygiene oppose 
the supremacy of the Divine Mind. Drugs 
and inert matter are unconscious, mindless," 
and consequently have no power. When the 
sick recover by the use of drugs, it is the law 
of general belief, culminating in individual 
faith, which heals." But of course the drugs, 
not being themselves real, and their power 
being an illusion of mortal mind, cannot heal. 
Metaphysical healing is purely mental. And 
thus it comes about that, as matter is non- 
existent, the material body, which does not 
exist save as an error of mortal mind (which 
is nothing, a belief, an error) is led to believe 
through the senses (which are false and de- 
ceptive) that it is afflicted with sickness or 
disease (which are in turn illusions of mortal 
mind). Then Christian Science puts forth its 
power to heal this sickness (which is not a 



124 ANTI-CHRISTIAN CULTS. 

reality), by dispelling the illusion suggested 
by the false, lying and cheating senses 
(though they are "impossible") that sick- 
ness exists in a material body that does not 
exist; while the power to heal through Chris- 
tian Science is demonstrated by means of these 
same untrue, impossible, corporeal senses. 

ITS THEOLOGY. 

We turn now to its Theology. God is 
declared to be Divine Principle, Life, Truth, 
Spirit, Mind. God is All in all and all is 
God. "Nothing possesses reality or exist- 
ence except Mind, God." God is the only 
Life, the one Spirit. He fills all space, and is 
"engirdled with the fatherhood and mother- 
hood of Love." As Elias represents the 
Fatherhood of God through Jesus, so the 
Revelator (see Rev. xn. 1, 2) completes this 
figure with woman as the spiritual idea or 
type of God's Motherhood, and so we find 
the first petition of the Lord's Prayer blas- 
phemously transposed into : " Our Father and 
Mother God, all harmonious." This reminds 
us of Pantheism, and when we are told that 



CHRIS Tl AX SCIEXCE. I. 125 

man is the compound idea or reflection of 
God or Mind, and is therefore eternal, that he 
has no separate mind from God, not a single 
quality underived from Deity, no life, no intel- 
ligence or creative power of his own, but 
reflects all that belongs to his Maker and 
co-exists with God and is eternal : and then 
consider that all reality is Spiritual, we have 
here a sort of Spiritual Pantheism. As for 

THE BLESSED TRINITY. 

the Blessed Trinity : " Father is the name for 
Spirit." "Jesus is the name , of the Son of 
Alary" who "in the flesh (mortal body) was 
appointed to speak to mortals in such a form 
of humanity as they could understand as well 
as perceive," i.e., through corporeal sense, a 
false faculty and illusion of the mind. " Christ 
expresses God's spiritual and eternal idea. 
The name is synonymous (identical) with 
Messiah and alludes to the spirituality which 
was taught, illustrated and demonstrated in ' 
the life whereof Christ Jesus was the embod- 
iment. " 



126 ANTI-CHRISTIAN CULTS. 

The Holy Ghost, or Spirit, reveals this 
triune Principle, and is expressed in Divine 
(Christian) Science which is the Comforter, 
leading into all Truth. 

Now while it must be admitted that these 
ideas of God and the Blessed Trinity cannot 
be proven from the Bible, and we know that 
"all mortals are egotists, " yet it seems to 
reach the height of absurdity to claim that 
Christian Science is the Comforter. 

MAN. 

Man is declared to be perfect, as God is per- 
fect, immortal, co-existent with God, "incapa- 
ble of sin, sickness and death, inasmuch as he 
derives his essence from God," and is insep- 
arable from Him. "Mortals are man's 
counterfeits," "material falsities .... 
errors made up of sin, sickness and death, 
which must give place to the facts which 
belong to immortal man." Man is not "a 
'material habitation for spirit, but is himself 

spiritual To the senses, man appears 

to be matter and mind united ; but Christian 



CHRISTIAN SCIENCE. I. 127 

Science reveals him as the idea of God, and 
declares the corporeal senses to be mortal 
and erring illusions." 

SOULS. 

The term souls or spirits is as improper as 
the term gods. Soul or Spirit signifies Deity 
and nothing else. There is no finite soul or 
spirit. Those terms mean only one existence.' ' 
God is All and all is God. God is Spirit, man 
is spirit, man is God — which is Pantheism. 
When, then, man is so very spiritual, we are 
not surprised to learn that " evil is an illusion 
and error has no real basis." That "the 
only reality of sin, sickness and death is the 
awful fact that unrealities seem real to human 
belief. Sin is identical with sickness and healed 
in the same way." It is a "species of insanity, 
i.e., an "hallucination," even as the inmates 
of asylums are " well defined instances of the 
baneful effects of illusion on mortal minds 
and bodies." 

Think, if such nonsense can be believed, 
how wicked it would be to punish a criminal 



128 ANTI-CHRISTIAN CULTS. 



because he is insane; how wrong for the 
author of Christian Science to declare that 
those who use her " discoveries, " without 
* ' giving proper credit, ' ' are guilty of a " breach 
of that divine command in the Hebrew deca- 
logue: 'Thou shalt not steal,'" when they 
were only laboring under an illusion; how 
shocking it would be to those who in their 
shameful wickedness break all the command- 
ments of the decalogue, to tell them that evil 
is an illusion or to reveal to them the "awful" 
fact that these horrible unrealities seem real 
to human belief. How quickly they would 
turn and repent of their evil. 

ADAM. 

In explaining original sin we get an idea 
of Christian Science exegesis, for we are told 
' ' the word Adam is from the Hebrew, adamah, 
signifying red, color of the ground, dust, noth- 
ingness. Divide the name Adam into two 
syllables (two words), and it reads A dam, 
i.e. , an obstruction. This suggests the thought 
of something fluid, of mortal mind in solu_ 



CHRISTIAN SCIENCE. I. 129 

tion, of the darkness which seemed to appear 
when 'darkness was upon the face of the 
deep/ and matter stood as opposed to Spirit, 
as that which is accursed. Jehovah declared 
the ground — matter — accursed ; and from this 
earth, or matter, sprang Adam, although God 
had blessed the earth 'for man's sake/ From 
this, it follows that Adam was not the ideal 
man for whom the earth was blessed. " 
Adam then stands for "error ; a falsity ; evil ; 
a curse ; nothingness ; the belief in original 
sin." Was ever greater ignorance and ab- 
surdity combined in a single argument ! 

ANTI-CHRISTIAN. 

We are not surprised that a system that 
denies the unreality of the senses and all 
things material, would declare the Scriptural 
account of creation as recorded in Genesis to 
be "allegorical" and prefer an alleged spir- 
itual rather than literal interpretation of 
the Word of God. But when, though speak- 
ing kindly of the Lord Jesus, this system 
would attempt to deprive Him of His Divine 



130 ANTI-CHRISTIAN CULTS. 

Sonship and Equality with the Father Al- 
mighty; has no need of Him as Saviour of 
mankind ; would take away as unnecessary 
His pardoning power; would destroy His 
atonement; would controvert His vicarious 
sacrifice; would change the idea of Baptism; 
w^ould declare the institution of the Blessed 
Sacrament " foolish in a literal sense/' and 
that if Christ, Truth, is Immanuel, God with 
us, no commemoration is necessary, notwith- 
standing the words : ' ' Do this in remembrance 
of Me;" when it declares that man has the 
same body after death as before, and that he 
is immortal, and so men do not have to 
come to Christ Jesus "that they may have 
life/' and that He may "raise them up at the 
last day" — whatever we may think of the 
members thereof, the system is decidedly anti- 
Christian. It is illogical, inconsistent, unrea- 
sonable. It cannot stand the test of common 
sense. It cannot stand alone, and so it bol- 
sters itself up on the Blessed Gospel of Jesus 
the Christ to which it is as false as false 
can be. 



CHRISTIAN SCIENCE. I. 131 

But, then, we know that the testimony 
of our senses can be relied upon. 

We know that matter is real. 

We know, when our conscience convinces 
us of sin, that sin is there ; it is no illusion. 

We know with S. John that "If we say 
we have no sin we deceive ourselves and the 
truth is not in us." 

We know that this whole system, which 
is against our own senses and our personal 
experience of life, is w r rong from beginning to 
end. 

We know too what the Prayer Book 
says: That we may "be made like unto 
Christ by suffering patiently adversities, 
troubles, sicknesses. For He Himself went 
not up to joy before He suffered pain; He 
entered not into His glory, before He was 
crucified. So, truly, our way to eternal joy 
is to suffering here with Christ." 12 And the 
sufferings of our Saviour have moved more 
men to repentance and reformation than all 
other moral forces combined, and, more than 

12 Prayer Book Visitation of the Sick. 



132 ANTI-CHRISTIAN CULTS. 

all others, have deepened throughout the 
world the sense of the infinite preciousness of 
personal goodness. And the explanation of 
this power must be sought in the constitution 
of the universe and in the nature of man him- 
self. As Horace Bushnell has masterfully 
depicted the very universe itself in vicarious 
sacrifice : 

" Life evermore is fed by death, 
In earth and sea and sky ; 
And that a rose may breathe its breath 
Something must die." 13 

13 Argument for Christianity, p. 270-271. 



Christian Science. HIT. 

ITS THERAPEUTICS. 

/CHRISTIAN SCIENCE claims to be the 
science of metaphysical healing. We ad- 
mit it to be an art. As an art of healing, then, 
what has it done ? What can it do ? That pain 
has been alleviated, that some diseases have 
been cured by Scientists, we are willing to con- 
cede. We however defy anyone to prove that 
such "healing" is due to that illogical, self- 
contradictory , ' ' non-sensical , ' ' anti-Christ- 
ian conglomeration, falsely called Christian 
Science. 

THE DISCOVERY. 

What the author of Health and Science 

" discovered " is a principle of human nature 

' (yet to be proven most valuable and useful) 



134 ANTI-CHRISTIAN CULTS. 

which makes possible the actual cures of all 
these healers of whatever sort, which was 
" discovered " and made use of by soothsayers 
and magi and all that class in the East, long 
before the Christian era. Not knowing what 
this principle is, one and all of these healers 
claim it to be a proof of their respective 
theory and the power that they possess. Not 
knowing the scope of its powers or the laws 
by which it is governed, it becomes a danger- 
ous force, however, in the hands of the many 
modern demonstrators, and for the safety of 
humanity (especially of children) they should 
be held liable for every death due to the 
ignorant use of this power. 

THE VIS MEDICATRIX NATUR/E. 

In considering the art of healing in general, 
we must take into account, as a most impor- 
tant element, what is called the Vis Medica- 
trix Nature, the healing or recuperative 
power of nature. Disease, you know, is an 
abnormal condition and nature is endowed 
with a power to restore our bodies to their 



CHRISTIAN SCIENCE. II. 135 

tnormal state. It is, as we well know, no 
always able to do this, being at times too 
completely obstructed; and so it is the 
province of the learned physician, not to per- 
form marvellous cures — he does not cure — but 
to exercise his skill in assisting nature by 
counteracting, nullifying or removing what- 
soever hinders its wonderful recuperative 
efforts. Of this ever active and assertive 
power of nature, Sir John Marshall, F.R.S., 
said: " The Vis Medicatrix Naturze is the 
agent to employ in the healing of an ulcer or 
the union of a broken bone ; and it is equally 
true that the physician or surgeon never cures 
a disease; he only assists the natural proc- 
esses of cure performed by the intrinsic con- 
servative energy of the frame, and this is but 
the extension of the force imparted at the 
origination of the individual being. M1 

Thus we may understand how one may be 
restored to health in spite of malpractice and 
why good nursing is so heartily commended 
by plrrsicians ; in the one instance, the won- 

1 Buckle}'. Faith Healing— Christian Science } p. 277. 



136 ANTI-CHRISTIAN CULTS. 

derful recuperative power of nature has suc- 
ceeded in spite of the ignorance of the practi- 
tioner ; and in the other, the nursing assisted 
nature in a recovery that was made certain 
and more speedy by its aid. 

THE INFLUENCE OF THE MIND. 

It is well known that the dominant mental 
state has a wholesome or depressing effect 
upon the organs of the body, so that many 
of the ills of which people complain, being 
imaginary, they may be dispelled by a com- 
plete and radical change of one's mental 
condition. "Mental impressions, however 
produced, it is said, act through the nervous 
system upon the organs of the body, so as to 
stimulate or to obstruct their functions. 
Thus, fright, grief, hope, cheerfulness, deter- 
mination to get well, or despair, all register 
themselves in the bodily condition. " 2 

How often have we heard of people said 
to have frightened themselves into sickness. 
Caring for the sick, they have in fear conceived 

2 See Shinn's Modem Substitutes for Christianity, 
p. 4G. 






CHRISTIAN SCIENCE. II. 137 

the idea that they have contracted the same 
disease. How often through despair and 
sometimes nothing but sheer laziness, people 
neglect the body until they become morose, 
despondent, morbid. They have innumerable 
aches and pains and require constant attend- 
ance, medical and otherwise. Here then is a 
field for marvellous cures by bread pills, 
colored water, faith, Christian Science, mes- 
merism, spiritualism and every kind of healing 
art. Whatever the means employed, how- 
ever, the underlying fact is that through hope, 
faith, a desire to get well, through finding a 
purpose in life, by being given something to 
do, through imparted cheerfulness, the mind 
is roused out of its morbid condition, every- 
thing around one again becomes bright, he is 
filled with hope and expectancy and in conse- 
quence, the sluggish organs of the body are 
so stimulated to activity that all symptoms 
of the imaginar\^ disease vanish away. 

CHARLATANRY. 

Victims of charlatanry are found in the 
cases of those who, after severe sickness or 



138 ANTI-CHRISTIAN CULTS. 

dangerous accident, are persuaded (in their 
own minds) that they are hopeless invalids. 
In illustration, there comes to my mind the 
instance of a lady who, recovering from a 
terrible accident, thought that she could 
never walk again. Her physician declared 
that there was no reason why she could not 
walk and at his suggestion, she was left in 
her arm chair under a tree, one summer after- 
noon, when a thunderstorm was approach- 
ing. She was always much alarmed by such 
storms and when she found that she was 
forgotten or neglected, she declared she got 
up and walked into the house and has walked 
ever since. What a marvellous cure this 
might have proven, if she had fallen into the 
hands of a healer, while still under her hallu- 
cination. Still other cases for the charlatan 
are those where the patient has passed the 
crisis and nothing remains to be done but 
with careful nursing to wait for nature to 
complete the restoration to health. Often, 
however, this does not take place as rapidly 
as desired (due frequently to ignorance and 



CHRISTIAN SCIENCE. II. 139 

improper care) and so a change of physicians 
is made or one of the many kinds of healers 
is called in, and to the latter is given the 
undeserved, -unearned credit of bringing about 
the recovery. 

ACTUAL CURES. 

It is admitted, however, that some cures 
by Christian Science healers and others are 
genuine, but it is firmly maintained that they 
pertain to functional, not organic diseases, 
that is, to those diseases the symptoms of 
which cannot be referred to any appreciable 
change of structure or derangement of an 
organ, and not to those attended with mor- 
bid changes of the structure of the organs of 
the body or in the composition of its fluids; 
or again, to ailments due to " nerval derange- 
ment" and not to those due to the invasion 
of microbes. 

PERCENTAGE OF CURES. THE PRINCIPLE. 

Furthermore, it is alleged that five per 
cent, of those who went to the healer 
Schlatter were cured. Five per cent, also of 



140 ANTI-CHRISTIAN CULTS. 

those incurables who take "The White 
Train' ' in France to visit the Grotto of 
Lourdes and who are examined by physicians 
before and after going, are pronounced cured. 
Christian Science, it is said, takes no account 
of its failures. We may therefore place its 
percentage on a level with those others, for 
whether we consider the cures of Christian 
Science, of Schlatter, of Lourdes or other 
wonder-working shrines, of faith, of mind 
cures, of mesmerism, of spiritualism, of mag- 
netic healers, of Indian medicine men, of 
Hindoo Yogis, of Egyptian Fakirs or of the 
old Eastern soothsayers before the Christian 
era, the principle is identical in one and all 
and so is not only no new " discovery " of 
this age but is even independent of all these 
systems, Christian Science as well as all the 
others, that it is alleged to support. That 
principle is the same that the fond mother 
makes use of when, her little child crying with 
the pain from a burned finger, she gives her a 
new doll and causes her to forget all about 
the pain. 



CHRISTIAN SCIENCE. II. 141 

Grasp this principle and you can explain 
all these marvellous cures. 

THE PRINCIPLE. 

Let us attempt to get an insight into it. 

I.— PAINLESSNESS— A FREAK OF NATURE. 

It is narrated of one Miss Evatima Tardo, 
who was born on the island of Trinidad, 
West Indies, and is now 26 years of age, that 
she does not know pain and has never had 
any feeling or sense of touch. It is said to 
be due to a defect in her nervous system. 
Snakes bite her, pins are thrust into her body, 
through her cheek; flesh wounds are made 
by knife or pistol ball, and she feels no pain. 
The wounds are not denied, because they do 
not pain. They are plainly to be seen. They 
heal very rapidly, however, because of the 
absence of pain or feeling which in ordinary 
mortals delays the recuperative powers of 
nature. Miss Tardo can also control the cir- 
culation of her blood, when bitten by a snake, 
allowing the wound to bleed or not, at will. 3 

3 See Minneapolis Journal, Aug. 10 and 14, '97; New 
York Sunday World, Aug., '97, also Tid Bits, Dec., '97. 



142 ANTI-CHRISTIAN CULTS. 

It. painlessness; superconsciousness or 

CONTROL OF THE SENSES. 

From Miss Tardo, we go to the Hindoo 
lecturer on Vedanta philosophy, in this coun- 
try, Swami Abhedananda, who in an inter- 
view in the Sun* (N. Y., Dec. 26, 1897) said 
concerning our blessed Lord, that, having (in 
Gethsemane) " reached the state of mind 
known to Hindus as samahdi or supercon- 
sciousness, " " there was no pain for Him 
on the cross ; that the nails driven into His 
hands and feet excited no more sensibility 
than they would, if driven into so much 
wood." He then explained what was " meant 
by the control of the senses as illustrated in 
the case of Christ." He tells of a sage, Chai- 
tanga, who was tested for the control of his 
senses, by holding some powdered sugar on 
his tongue for ten minutes and then blowing 
it off as dry as ever. Again he tells of another 
sage in India. Outside of the city, robbers 
had taken him for a spy and chopped off his 
right arm. He quickly walked back to the 

4 See Literary Digest, Jan. 15, 1898, p. 81. 



CHRISTIAN SCIENCE, II. 143 



city. A kind-hearted Brahmin met him, rec- 
ognized him and fell at his feet, binding up 
his wound. But the sage was hardly aware 
that he had been wounded. " His counten- 
ance glowed with deep calmness and tran- 
quillity. He had not only withdrawn his 
senses but he had shut his soul entirely in 
from his mind." Other sages have been 
chopped to pieces uttering the declaration all 
the while that they " could not be killed." 
Still again, he tells of a friend of his in Lon- 
don going to see a Spaniard who claimed to 
have entire control of his senses. Submitting 
to a test, a doctor drove a needle between the 
nail and flesh of his thumb. The Spaniard 
did not wince but went on laughing and talk- 
ing to his friends. After some minutes, he 
was requested to relax his mind. Of course 
when he did so, he was seized with the most 
excruciating pain and blood began to run 
from the wound. "It is by such concentra- 
tion of mind," he declares, "that one is able 
to separate the soul from the mind and free it 
from the knowledge of matter." 



144 ANTI-CHRISTIAN CULTS. 

These examples show us the possibility of 
the absence of pain or of a state of uncon- 
sciousness of both pain and suffering, and that 
this state of unconsciousness can be brought 
about through the control of the senses. It 
also shows within man something that can 
control the senses. What is this something? 

III. THE SUBJECTIVE MIND. 

The Very Reverend Dean Hart, in his 
examination of Christian Science says : " It is 
now beginning to be recognized that the 
human mind is not one uniform and homo- 
geneous machine; it contains wheels within 
wheels. To the close observer, it becomes 
evident that parts of the mind are capable of 
almost independent action. It is a common 
experience with men who are accustomed to 
speaking in public, that they are conscious of 
two currents of thought ; the lips pronounc- 
ing one, and the other part of the mind pre- 
paring for what is coming next, or probably 
making some observation connected with 



CHRISTIAN SCIENCE. IL 145 

their audience, which shall modify their mode 
of address. We seem to be aiming at the con- 
clusion that beneath the active surface of the 
mind, there lies an inactive but recipient 
mental plane which has been called the sub- 
jective mind." 5 

That this subjective mind does exist, that 
it receives impressions and retains them, he 
declares, is frequently " evidenced in the sud- 
den recollection of a series of events abso- 
lutely forgotten" and again by the "com- 
mon occurrence with persons on the brink of 
sudden death, w T hen the events of their entire 
life pass before their mental view in rapid 
panorama." 

Swami Abhedananda, the Hindu lecturer 
to whom we have referred before, declares 
further that by " concentration of mind, the 
soul is departed from the mind and freed 
from bondage to matter." 6 He further says 
that " according to the Vedanta view of 
Christ, all of us will some day .... 

5 A Way that Seemeth Right, pp. 46-47. 

6 Lit. Digest, Jan. 15, 1898, p. 81. 



1 46 ANTI-CHRISTIAN CULTS. 

become Christ, for in every one of us is 
the pure and sublime soul that shows forth 
from Him on the Mount of Transfigura- 
tion. It needs only to be set free, to con- 
nect itself with this cosmic intelligence that 
stands behind and directs, evolves and pro- 
jects all these forms of matter that w^e 
see." 7 Then he asks: "What do we see in 
ourselves ? First, the body, then behind it the 
mind, and behind that something that is 
conscious of them both. One can often separ- 
ate all three of them in such a manner as to 
see their difference. This soul or cosmic con- 
sciousness behind everything, is able to mani- 
fest itself in man more freely than in anything 
else, because of the more nearly perfect form 
of his mind and body." 8 

THE DOUBLE EGO OR DOUBLED CONSCIOUSNESS. 

We turn from this Hindu then, with his 
idea of " concentration of mind," something 
behind both mind and body, this supercon- 

7 Lit. Digest, Jan. 15, 1898, p. 80. 
s Ibid. pp. 80-82. 



CHRISTIAN SCIENCE. II. 147 

scions state and from the subjective mind, to 
the theory of the psychologist, Max Dessoir, 
of Berlin, concerning the "Doppel Ich," or, 
Double Ego. He supposes that human per- 
sonality is a unity merely to our conscious- 
ness, but that it consists really of at least 
two clearly distinguishable personalities, each 
held together by its own chain of memories. 9 
[An illustration is given in the case of one 
Barkworth, adding up a long row of figures 
at the same time that he carried on a lively 
conversation.] His idea is that there is an 
unconscious intelligence in man and an un- 
conscious memory, and that as consciousness 
and memory are the two elements of person- 
ality, he concludes that there must be a sec- 
ond personality. The mental processes which 
tak place consciously to the man (says 
Moll), are called the primary consciousness, 
and those which go on without his knowl- 
edge the secondary consciousness ; the action 
of both together is a state of double con- 
sciousness, or doubled consciousness. 10 Two 

9 Moll's Hypnotism, p. 259. io Ibid. p. 260. 



148 ANTI-CHRISTIAN CULTS. 

entirely separate personalities in an individ- 
ual, as though A carried within himself the 
personality of B is not to be supposed. The 
Double Ego is not to be so conceived, but is 
only a diagram to indicate the fact that 
psychic processes may go on within us, un- 
observed, and often yielding no evidence of 
themselves except their results/' 11 

IV. HYPNOTIC SUGGESTION. 

We turn now to hypnosis, and the peculiar 
state into which subjects are thrown by 
bringing into play this secondary conscious- 
ness. This is entirely a subjective state, by 
which control is obtained of the physical 
functions and sensations. Thus the Aissaouas 
of Constantine, Algiers, are able by means of 
dancing and singing to throw themselves 
into a state of ecstacy, difficult to describe, in 
which their bodies seem insensible even to 
severe wounds. They run pointed iron into 
their heads, eyes, neck and breasts without 

n Moll's Hypnotism, p. 260. 






CHRISTIAN SCIENCE. II. 149 

injuring themselves. Behold how the senses 
may be controlled and by what means. 12 

Now let us understand that this secondary 
consciousness, which plays so important a 
part, which Dessoir calls : " The hidden half of 
our mental life;" 13 which evidently itself 
brings into subjection the physical functions 
and sensations, is always amenable to sug- 
gestion, whether it be external or auto- 
suggestion. By suggestion, Moll 14 has refer- 
ence to the commands given to subjects, the 
promptings and persuasions used to influence 
them. The clearest definition of suggestion 
is to be found in the Century Dictionary, 
namely, " The insinuation of a belief or 
impulse into the mind of the subject by any 
means, as by words or gestures, usually by 
emphatic declaration; also the impulse of 
trust which leads to the effectiveness of such 
incitement; " while suggestibilit3 r is defined as 
"the impression on the mind of an idea, 



12 Moll's Hypnotism, p. 42. 
!3 Ibid. p. 261. 
!4 Ibid. p. 36. 



150 ANTI-CHRISTIAN CULTS. 

image, movement, which the person repro- 
duces voluntarily or involuntarily." 15 

Now let us take an example of a healing 
by suggestion. 16 We wish to cure a head- 
ache by arousing in the subject the idea that 
the headache is gone. Spontaneous reflection 
would prevent this in most waking people, 
but in hypnosis ideas are more easily estab- 
lished. If the subject accepts the suggestion, 
we may be sure that, in the hypnotic state, 
he does not feel the pain. But now we have 
to prevent the pain after waking. Either 
external post-hypnotic suggestion or auto- 
suggestion will do this. We can make the 
patient continue to think the pain is gone 
after he wakes. He need not be conscious of 
this idea, in the sense of remembering it. On 
the contrary, the less conscious the idea is, 
the more effect it will have, because reflection 
will not struggle against it. Auto-suggestion 
is the second plan. The patient, finding him- 
self without pain in hypnosis, may convince 

15 See Wolcott's What is Christian Science, p. 58. 

16 Moll's Hypnotism, p. 346. 






CHRISTIAN SCIENCE. II. 151 

himself that pain is not a necessary conse- 
quence of his state, and this idea may under 
some circumstances be strong enough to pre- 
vent the return of the pain. 17 

Furthermore, suggestibility sometimes 
exists where there is not evidence that the 
subject is in the hypnotic state. Dean Hart, 
in the work before quoted, narrates from the 
British Foreign Medical Review, a case 
reported by a naval surgeon as follows : " A 
very intelligent officer had suffered for some 
years from violent attacks of cramps in the 
stomach. These attacks came on monthly, 
or oftener, and subnitrate of bismuth had 
been used with good results, but, notwith- 
standing that the dose was increased to the 
largest extent that its poisonous qualities 
would justify, it lost its effects. Sedatives 
were again used, but while suffering greatly 
rom the effects of some preparation of opiumf 
he was told that on the next attack he would 
be put under the effect of a medicine which 
was generally believed to be most effective, 

!7 Moll's Hypnotism, pp. 346, 347. 



152 ANTI-CHRISTIAN CULTS. 

but which was rarely used because of its 
dangerous qualities ; but that, notwithstand- 
ing these, it would be tried, provided he gave 
his consent. This he did willingly. Accord- 
ingly, on the first attack after this, a powder 
. containing four grains of ground biscuit was 
administered every seven minutes, while the 
greatest anxiety was expressed (within the 
hearing of the patient) lest too much should 
be given. The fourth dose caused an entire 
cessation of pain. Half drachm doses of 
bismuth had never produced the same relief 
in less than three hours. Four times the 
same remedy was used however with the 
same result. After that he left the ship." 18 
This leads the Dean to declare that "thought 
of any given bodily change tends to the actual 
production in the body of the change that 
thought suggests." 

EXPLANATION OF THE CURES. 

We are now in a condition to explain the 
marvellous cures of functional or even organic 
diseases whether by Schlatter, the medicine 

is A Way That Seemeth Right, pp. 22, 23, 24. 



CHRISTIAN SCIENCE. II. 153 

man of the Indians, the mesmeric healer, faith 
healer, spiritualist, Hindu Yogi, Eastern fakir 
or Christian Scientist. The principle is one, 
if the methods vary. With the scientist the 
patient (subject) is regarded as laboring 
under a delusion, an illusion, is told that he 
is not sick, that he has no pain and that he 
should act accordingly (i.e., as a well per- 
son.) Here is the suggestion. (If the subject 
is not actually hypnotized he is under the 
influence of hypnotic suggestion.) The ten- 
dency is to produce in the body the change 
that thought suggests. 

More than this, the suggestion arouses 
the secondary consciousness, that mighty 
something within us that controls our sensa- 
tions and (the senses under abeyance) the 
body is not racked with pain ; in consequence 
the healing process goes on more rapidly. 
Then take into account the fact that the 
mighty recuperative force of nature (the vis 
wedicatrix naturae,) always at work, must 
act more rapidly and successfully under these 
favorable circumstances, and we see why the 



154 ANTI-CHRISTIAN CULTS. 

patient may recover without the use of medi- 
cine. 

EXCEPTIONS. 

Whensoever these marvellous cures are 
made then, this is the principle, but it does 
not always act. In many cases it should not 
be attempted. Unfortunately for Christian 
Science, it only makes one exception. It ad- 
vises that " adjustment of broken bones and 
dislocations' ' be left to the fingers of a sur- 
geon, saying, " Christian Science is always 
the most skilful surgeon, but surgery is the 
branch of its healing which will be last dem- 
ons trated." 

ITS HARM FULNESS. 

As Christian Science makes no other excep- 
tions, its healers who presume to give treat- 
ment to the afflicted are an actual menace to 
a community, because they condemn every 
other kind of treatment; because they do not 
presume to diagnose a case; because they 
spurn anatomy and physiology ; because they 
are grossly ignorant of the power that they 



CHRISTIAN SCIENCE. IL 155 

possess. We admit in some instances this 
treatment is successful, but we also declare, 
that in certain kinds of diseases it is worse 
than useless to attempt it, as is well known 
to those who understand what this power is 
by which such healing is brought about. 
Being incapable of telling when to use it and 
when not to use it, and so using it indiscrimi- 
nately, these so-called healers become danger- 
ous, a menace to the community. If after 
having tried it and found it a miserable failure 
(not because it is useless, but because its 
power is abused through ignorance) they 
would then admit such failure and call in a 
physician before it is too late, it would not be 
quite so dangerous. But even so, they should 
not be allowed to practise it, any more than 
a child should be allowed to play with a 
razor. If they do practice and a patient dies 
through their criminal ignorance and negli- 
gence, why should they not be held for mal- 
practice the same as any other practitioner? 
Again, if this science is " divine," if Jesus Christ 
practised according to its rules, if He taught 



156 ANTI-CHRISTIAN CULTS. 

His "students" (disciples) the generalities of 
this principle as claimed, yet they, like the 
Master, administered to the afflicted without 
money and without price. But the students 
of the author who claimed to be "called of 
God to proclaim His Gospel to this age," i.e., 
through her book, Science and Health, turn 
their treatment to pecuniary benefit and so 
would seem to put themselves in the class 
with Simon the sorcerer, who would traffic 
with the gift of God and was so severely re- 
buked by St. Peter. i» 

CONCLUSION. 

We have earnestly and honestly tried to 
ascertain what there is in the alleged healing 
power of Christian Science, so called. We 
have found a principle of action, a principle 
within man, long used in the East, of more 
recent discovery in the West, yet bound to be 
more thoroughly known, which is no more 
peculiar to Christian Science than to any 
other of the many mysterious modes of heal- 

!9 Acts viii; 18-20. 



CHRISTIAN SCIENCE. II. 157 

ing. That principle is of benefit in some kinds 
of ailments and will be found of more use, 
when it is more thoroughly understood. The 
principle will remain when the theory of 
Christian Science is forgotten. As a theory, 
it is ill conceived, illogical and in some places 
utterly senseless. But, above all, while claim- 
ing to be Christian and to be based upon the 
Bible, it is decidedly anti-Christian even as 
its doctrines will be found to be contrary to 
the truth as it is in Jesus. 



Conclusion* 

THE REASON AND THE REMEDY FOR THESE 
A NTI -CHRISTIAN CULTS. 

TN the consideration of some modern sub- 
stitutes for the Gospel or anti-Christian 
cults, we tried to ascertain what there was in 
Spiritualism, Theosophy and Christian Sci- 
ence. We found that it was an historical fact 
that during the last quarter of a century 
there is ever an attempt made to restore the 
ancient religions. Spiritualism we know was 
practised in some of its many forms from the 
earliest ages in the history of man. 

Theosophy affirms and declares that we 
should study the ancient religions and " con- 
fess to the superiority of the ancient sages/ ' 



CONCLUSION. 159 



Christian Science, as a healing art, we dis- 
covered, rests upon the same principle as that 
which governed the cures of Eastern sooth- 
sayers and fakirs long before the Christian 
era. We can, with reason, then, ascribe their 
prominence to-day to that peculiar epidemic 
that characterizes the last quarter of a cen- 
tury, which is decidedly as anti-Christian, as 
they are. 

SPIRITUALISM. 

We found Spiritualism to be so sur- 
rounded with fraud, trickery and deceit that 
it was difficult to find even the modicum of 
truth necessary to give it any hold upon an 
intelligent and not a superstitious people. 
We found its marvellous manifestations and 
phenomena could all be duplicated by the 
honest presdigitateur, through his own skill, 
and, therefore, that it was needless to call in 
the aid of unseen, disembodied spirits. As for 
these alleged communications with the spirits 
of the departed, we learned from the Bible 
that the spirits of the departed are held in 
abeyance, confined, imprisoned in some place 



160 ANTI-CHRISTIAN CULTS. 

from which they cannot return, and that it is 
doubtful if they are conscious of what is 
going on in the carnal world. Wherefore, we 
conclude that whatever marvellous powers 
they seem to have are due to mind-reading, 
telepathy, hypnotism, or some other phenom- 
ena of the subjective mind, which phenomena, 
known and made use of in the East for cen- 
turies, may have been revealed to them by 
the evil spirits that inhabit the air and in the 
interest of the Prince of this world, whose 
limited reign seems to be at its height. 

Spiritualism, in principle, is in defiance of 
Almighty God, in claiming to reveal that 
which He does not purpose to reveal. It has 
no need of a Saviour; it looks forward to a 
female Messiah, and, contrary to the teach- 
ing of the Bible that, " now is the accepted 
time," teaches that our sins can be atoned for 
hereafter. 

THEOSOPHY. 

Theosophy is a system evolved out of a 
combination of the doctrines of evolution, 
reincarnation, fatalism and Pantheism. It is 



CONCLUSION. 161 



admittedly pagan in its origin and claims its 
occultism to be "handed down from the times 
of the Mysteries to the present. " It cannot 
admit a personal God, and says the "Father 
in Heaven is a well known esoteric phase for 
the Higher Self," but God is all and all is God. 
It starts with Substance, God, Living Sub- 
stance, which has two states: the higher 
spirit and that which is projected into lower 
conditions, matter. Both, of course, are 
eternal and the process we see going on in the 
world is the evolution of matter into spirit. 

Man is not a creature of God, but a result 
in the development of this process; and he 
came forth from the rocks. His present state 
is the result of what he did in a previous life, 
of which he has no memory or consciousness, 
and his condition, when next he becomes 
incarnate, depends upon what he does in this 
stage of his existence — the king may become 
the bootblack, the washerwoman, the liter- 
ateur. So it goes on through the countless 
ages, up or down, till by regeneration or de- 
generation man attains to annihilation. 



162 ANTI-CHRISTIAN CULTS. 

Pain and suffering, misery and happiness 
are results of what one has done in previous 
existence, following the rule of cause and effect 
and to relieve one of his distress is to interfere 
with his redemption. Consequently there is 
no mercy, no pardon, no vicarious sacrifice, no 
Saviour, only the stern hard road of fate. With 
woman declared to be the head of creation, 
the outward and visible sign of the Fall is the 
subjection of woman to man in the world, 
and her complete restoration and exaltation 
is necessary before redemption can be effected; 
while the progress in the development of souls 
will lead to the "universal belief of the doc- 
trine that sin is expiated by transmigrations 
and in the worship of the Great Goddess. " 

The Holy Spirit is looked upon as the 
female element in the Divine Substance and 
Christ is declared to be a title given to all 
triumphant Initiates, of which there have 
been eleven, and another is yet to come to 
reconcile the seeming differences of his prede- 
cessors and to acknowledge the Christs of all 
nations. 



CONCLUSION. 163 



Of course, Theosophy would reduce Christ- 
ianity to the level of the ancient religions, 
that, out of all, it might be acknowledged the 
universal religion. It does not directly attack 
the Bible and its doctrines but it would explain 
them so as to advance its own cause. 

It rests its theories upon the revelation of 
a line of elder brothers, Christs, Mahatmas, 
Adepts, Initiates, " highly developed men," 
" perfected forms of other periods of evolu- 
tion, " invisible beings of whom great things 
are claimed, who are alleged to have told 
Mme. Blavatski and other leaders all they 
knew of this mysterious system ; but there 
is not the slightest evidence that such beings 
exist. Indeed, the Bible would teach that 
those who have passed from this earth can- 
not return or communicate with its inhabit- 
ants. 

Theosophy condemns the trickery of Spirit- 
ualism yet is not itself free from this same 
means used to advance its cause, but there are 
none of its phenomena, that are genuine, that 
cannot be explained through the secondary 



164 ANTI-CHRISTIAN CULTS. 

consciousness made use of by ancient sages of 
the East, but not known till recent years in 
the West. 

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE. 

Christian Science we found to be the 
name given to a theory woven around an 
alleged discovery of an art of healing, the 
principle of which, however, has been made 
use of by all kinds of healers, ancient as well 
as modern. The explanation is found in the 
secondary consciousness of man, responding 
to hypnotic suggestion. Cures are performed 
in this way assuredly, but there is a most 
decided limit and it is worse than useless to 
apply it in all cases. As this is attempted, 
however, and lives are actually lost in this 
way, it becomes a dangerous principle in the 
hands of ignorant healers and should be 
restricted. 

As a theory, it is the idealism of Bishop 
Berkeley, attempted to be put into practical 
every day life. Declaring matter non-existent 
and nothing real but mind or spirit, it would 



CONCLUSION. 165 



counteract, heal, the evil effects, which active 
nothingness (sin, sickness and death) exerts 
upon the lives of men but which it declares to 
be illusions of mortal mind. 

As a science, it is a misnomer, illogical, 
incomplete, inconsistent and altogether un- 
trustworthy. As a religion, it is anti- 
Christian. It twists, perverts and contra- 
dicts the plain teaching of the Bible and 
denies the Christ of history to advance its 
own untenable assertions. If ever there was 
an illusion, it is what is called Christian 
Science, which raises a hope in the breasts of 
its adherents which they will find, when too 
late, that it is utterly incapable of satisfying. 

But why will people follow after such 
things? Why should we desire to peer 
into the future when our own experience 
teaches us that it is best for us not to know 
what is in store for us? Why should we 
desire to explain all things (with the Theoso- 
phists) when we know that it is impossible, 
or what satisfaction can it be when we are 
suffering and in want, while others rejoice 



166 ANTI-CHRISTIAN CULTS. 

and have abundance, to know that it is 
according to the law of Karma and due to 
something done in a previous existence? Why 
should we desire to deny the testimony of the 
senses? Why deny the reality of pain and 
suffering ? 

We know that this is not a perfect world 
and that in the midst of its joys and happiness, 
trouble, toil and pain are sure to come; but 
we also know that sorrow has its uses and 
that by reason of the crosses, often grievous 
that we have had to bear, we have grown 
purer, nobler, better, happier, so that, though 
it meant agony to us at the time, we have 
cause to rejoice that we were made to go 
through the fiery furnace of affliction. 

THE REASON. 

Why then do men to-day take up with 
these substitutes for the Gospel instead of 
taking up their cross to follow Jesus? The 
reason is plain. They have not learned that 
" there is none other Name under heaven given 
among men, whereby we must be saved.' ' 



CONCLUSION. 167 



They have not yet acknowledged that the only 
true religion is the Gospel, the only true hope 
of salvation that of Jesus of Nazareth. When 
then they see so many of the household of 
faith cold, indifferent, listless believers, having 
the form of Godliness but denying the power 
thereof, believing in spite of themselves, yet 
finding no hope and joy and comfort in be- 
lieving — when they see Christendom divided 
up into a multitude of sects, caring not so 
much for the cause of the Master, as for their 
own sect, unable perhaps to repeat the " Faith 
once for. all delivered to the saints' ' and " con- 
tending earnestly " for their own opinions 
rather than for that — when this condition of 
things is recognized as existing among those 
who profess and call themselves Christians, 
it is not strange that the world should look 
askance or that others should at times be 
inclined to advance ideas of their own, even 
if they are not distinctly Christian. &nd, 
it must be admitted, just as soon as we 
depart a single iota from the " Faith once 
for all delivered" one individual or organiza- 



168 ANTI-CHRISTIAN CULTS. 

tion has as much right to advance his ideas 
and opinion as another, whether Christian 
or not. It must also be admitted that it is 
not pleasant to think that we are responsible 
beings held to account for all that is done in 
the flesh or that there is but one way of sal- 
vation, one way to obtain immortal life. 
With the responsibility of eternity before us, 
it is not pleasant to think of the uncertainty 
of the future; or that we must suffer while 
others know nought but joy; or that our 
trials and troubles are all needless. When 
therefore theories are advanced that would 
relieve us of such things, it is not strange that 
there are some poor souls that are attracted 
by them. But 'tis all in vain; God's plans 
for the salvation of mankind are not to 
be overthrown by man's connivance. We 
poor mortals are to walk by faith, not by 
knowledge; and when trials and tribulations 
come upon us, as must needs be, our hope, 
our comfort, is to be found not in denying 
them but in waiting upon the Lord and hear 
ing Him say to us as to S. Paul : " My grace 



CONCLUSION. 169 



is sufficient for thee ; for my strength is made 
perfect in weakness/ ' This is the panacea of 
all earthly ills, which will enable us, not to 
deny or ignore them but to triumph over 
them. 

THE REMEDY. 

If then we have found the cause of these 
ills, for so they really are, have we not also 
found the cure, the remedy, in a complete trust 
in an active living faith in the Lord Jesus, that 
would lead us to proclaim from the housetop 
if need be, but much better in an holy Christ- 
ian living, that there is none other name 
under heaven given among men whereby we 
may receive health and salvation but only 
the name of our Lord Jesus Christ ! 

Oh, then that we knew more about the 
Church of the living God, what it is, what it 
claims and what it stands for! Oh, that we 
could realize the mighty power of the Gospel 
of Jesus Christ; not so much in the past as in 
the present ; not so much by what it has done 
as by what it can do for us here and now ! 



170 ANTI-CHRISTIAN CULTS. 

Oh, that we might realize the power of 
Jesus Christ over mankind and in ourselves. 
Then would we no longer seek in vain to flee 
the uncertainties, the sorrows, the pain, the 
anguish to be found in this temporal world, 
for the Cross and the abundant grace given, 
would enable us to triumph over them, 
to rejoice in spite of them — yea, conquerors 
through our great Redeemer's might, sealed 
with His eternal Name, we shall find perfect 
health and eternal salvation, and it may be 
sung of us as of the Saints in Light : 

"Hunger, thirst, disease unknown, 
On immortal fruits they feed ; 
Them the Lamb amidst the throne, 
Shall to living fountains lead. 

"Joy and gladness banish sighs ; 
Perfect love dispels their fears ; 
And forever from their eyes, 
God shall wipe away their tears." 

The End. 



JUN 24 1898 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



021 100 340 6 



